Delhi govt to give Rs 2 lakh per acre aid for park maintenance

Ananya Panda

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 22

In a bid to encourage public participation in greening initiatives, the Delhi government has decided to double the financial assistance to Rs 2 lakh per acre provided annually to the Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) and NGOs registered with the Delhi Parks and Gardens Society (DPGS) for upkeep of parks and gardens across the city.

The government would also scrap the provision of granting money for maintenance of parks depending on the type of colonies from A to H categories as classified by Municipal Corporations for levying of property tax.

A new policy on the same will be rolled out soon, said Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal during an interactive session with representatives of around 260 RWAs and NGOs on Sunday at his residence in the national capital.

Making a slew of announcements on involving residents in parks maintenance and greening activities, Kejriwal requested the participants to adopt more parks for undertaking greening activities in a big way and engage more locals in the maintenance and development of parks ahead of the Aam Aadmi Party government's launch of "Delhi's biggest ever plantation drive" next month details of which will be made public soon.

"We will involve RWAs, NGOs, corporates and other registered bodies to adopt and maintain 18,000 parks in Delhi," said the Delhi chief minister while urging residents to come forward with kids to join the government's "plantation drive" whose details are being worked out.

Kejriwal also invited RWAs for public consultation on CCTV cameras next Sunday.

Offering his participation in such activities, the Chief Minister earlier announced that the amount to be disbursed for parks' development in Delhi would be raised to Rs 2 lakh per acre from the existing Rs 1 lakh and it will no longer be linked with the categorisation of colonies.

With the new policy the assistance would be uniform across Delhi with 90 per cent assistance coming from the government while 10 per cent to be borne by the RWAs and NGOs, Kejriwal noted.

Until now the DPGS, which is set up by the government for the purpose of monitoring and coordinating maintenance activities of parks and gardens in the national capital, has been providing financial assistance at Rs 1 lakh per acre per annum depending upon the size of the park.

For instance, parks and gardens located in colonies falling under A category get 30 per cent of assistance with progressive assistance up to 100 per cent in case of H categories colonies.

Several participants raised multiple issues, including extensive and cumbersome documentation in receiving the aid, problems in obtaining permission for pruning trees and plants, scarcity of water and inadequacies in infrastructure in the parks, having tree guards for protecting plantation and water harvesting, among others.

To which Kejriwal assured to ease the documentation for release of the assistance and help with the support of MLAs Development Fund in undertaking development activities in the parks such as installing gym, swings, pathways etc.

In the financial year 2017-18, 261 RWAs received financial assistance to the tune of around Rs 1.63 crore for maintaining 1,164 parks covering around 370 acre area.

The chief minister requested the participants at the meeting to get their damaged borewells and motors repaired with the government's support in the next 10 days for which they may give request letters to the DPGS.

Environment and Forest Minister Imran Hussain along with DPCC and some MLAs along with senior officials of the department and were also present at the meeting.