Councillors express concern over condition of parks

Expressing concern over the condition of parks under the North and South Delhi Municipal Corporation, the councillors today suggested to give more parks to Resident Welfare Associations for maintenance.
The issue came up for discussion in the House and Standing Committee respectively.
In the North Corporation meeting, leader of the house Mahendra Nagpal said, "It will take about three months to procure 5,200 tree guards while the time for tree plantation is now. How does one explain this discrepancy."
He also suggested giving more parks to RWAs.
"More and more RWAs are willing to take up this task. We should increase the monthly allowance given to them for this task from Rs 6,000 to Rs 8,000," Nagpal said.

At present, the north corporation has 5,234 parks out of which 323 are being run by RWAs.

Other members present also expressed displeasure at the condition of parks, raising questions about the veracity of claims of officials.
"Here it says that the water supply in all parks is working smoothly. But tubewells have not been working in parks in my area for past several months," said Congress's Satbir Sharma.
The other major complaints listed by the councillors in this regard were a lack of gardeners, absence of benches and dustbins as well as no provision of any watchman.
About 259 posts of gardeners are vacant in North Corporation and the process for recruitment is currently on.

In the South Corporation, it was told that the proposal of the horticulture department to procure 4,000 benches for this year is under consideration.
Besides, the corporation will achieve its aim to plant 68,400 trees in the next three months, the standing committee members were told.