VIJAYAWADA: The Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) has planned to entrust the maintenance of public parks to Residents’ Welfare Associations (RWAs). An agreement in this regard was reached between the VMC and the RWAs recently.
As per the agreement, visitors will be allowed into the parks between 8 am and 7 pm. Entry will be free in all the 146 community parks run by the VMC horticulture wing in the city. According to VMC officials, the maintenance of parks was entrusted to the RWAs a few years ago on an experimental basis. Salaries to staff were paid by the VMC based on the park acreage. However, the initiative was abolished due to various reasons.
Now, the VMC wants to implement the initiative in a transparent manner to achieve better results. At present, the city has 258 resident welfare and colony associations. Of the total, only a small number of RWAs are recognised. Initially, the park maintenance will be entrusted to the recognised RWAs.
Explaining the concept, Additional Director of Horticulture J Jyothi said a gardener or a watchman should be appointed for every park. The municipal corporation and the RWAs will share the park maintenance cost in 60:40 ratio. Park committees will be constituted with locals where there are no recognised RWAs, she said.
Local corporator will be the ex-officio president of the park committees. Highlighting the agreement norms, the Additional Director of Horticulture said unauthorised structures should not be constructed in the public parks. No changes in civil structure and plan of the park will be allowed. A supervisor from the VMC will inspect the parks every fortnight.
After inspecting facilities in the parks, he will issue a certificate. The VMC will release the matching grant towards park maintenance based on the certificate. Penalties will be imposed on the RWAs and park committees if they violate the norms. The VMC has the right to cancel the MoU with RWAs.