CUTTACK: In a bid to boost green cover across the Millennium City, the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) which is observing Van Mahotsav Week, has targeted to distribute five saplings to each family free of cost besides carrying out plantation works at parks, on the roadsides and other open spaces in the city.
For the purpose, the CMC has made a special budget to spend Rs 1.5 crore for plantation of at least 10 lakh saplings. However ironically, though the CMC has its own nursery for growing saplings, it now has to purchase them either from the Forest department or private nurseries due to the tardy pace of restoration of its central nursery.
The nursery, spread over 2.5 acre of land at Badambadi, was a prominent facility where different kinds of rare, valuable medicinal and other useful plant herbs and fruit and flower bearing trees were prepared and people were able to avail those saplings at reasonable prices, just by paying Rs 10 per each.
Instead of a business, it was a noble initiative by the civic body towards motivating people to go for planting by providing saplings at such cheap prices.Sources said majority of the saplings at the nursery were ravaged in cyclone Fani and the others destroyed during shifting of the facility from Badambadi to CDA-Sector-9 in February 2021 to facilitate construction of Netaji Bus Terminal.
During that time, the CMC had floated a tender which was awarded to a Bhubaneswar-based private agency for construction of a park and restoration of the central nursery over around 7 acre of land at the cost of Rs 2 crore with deadline to complete the park and restoration of the nursery within two months.
Though the restoration work wasn’t complete even after 16 months, under construction central nursery was hurriedly inaugurated on August 31, 2022.Meanwhile, though 10 months have already passed since inauguration of the central nursery, saplings are yet to be available.
Sources said the Forest department will provide 75,000 saplings at Rs 1 each to CMC under Green Mahanadi Mission and the rest will be provided to the civic body at Rs 50 to Rs 60 per sapling.The civic body which earlier was providing saplings to people, has been purchasing saplings to observe Van Mahotsav for the last 3 years. CMC deputy commissioner Ajay Mohanty said step was being taken to prepare and make the saplings available from the next season.