Civic body pulled up for poor condition of gardens
THE Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation was slammed by corporators for poor maintenance of gardens in the city despite a budget of over Rs 200 crore for the same. Members of the civic standing committee pulled up officials from the gardens department for the pending garden beautification projects on Wednesday.
Shiv Sena corporator Yashwant Jadhav said that despite sanctioning Rs 10 crore for developing a garden close to the Bhandarwada reservoir, the work was progressing at snails pace. The phase one got completed but work on phase two is yet to being. Why is the administration so lax about this issue?, said Jadhav.
BJP corporator Bhalchandra Shirsat said that the beautification of the Powai lake that involves developing a garden alongside has been delayed fore more than three years. The delay has caused the project price to escalate and the standing committee has had to pass variation proposals on this particular project four times in the past three years. Crores of rupees are going down the drain without any visible result, said Shirsat.
Corporator Rajul Patel from Andheri said, The BMC is spending close to Rs 7 lakh on every traffic island but the only thing that one can see is metal railings and advertisements put on them. There is hardly any greenery. Additional Municipal Commissioner (gardens) Aseem Gupta said that a green fund will be created to make sure that projects are completed on time. I will set a time limit for the officials and all major projects where more than 60 per cent of the work has been done, will be completed by the end of January, said Gupta.