NMMC to offer

Navi Mumbai
The maintenance and upkeep of every garden, open spaces, tree belts, and plantations along the road dividers within the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) jurisdiction is now to be done through a comprehensive contract which is estimated to cost the administration over ₹50 crore annually.
The civic administration has worked out an elaborate action plan to ensure that the city green zones are taken care of. The foremost step taken is to divide the city’s green area into 10 parts and the onus of maintaining the trees and plantations is now upon 10 contractors respectively. The areas taken into consideration also include plantations, green islands developed on the Palm Beach road as well as on the Thane Belapur road.
The 10 contractors will be entrusted to look into the total maintenance and upkeep of the city’s greenery spread across a total 17 lakh sq meter area. Navi Mumbai currently has a total of 218 gardens.
“The biggest issue faced in maintaining the gardens or any of the green zones of the city was the lack of coordination amongst departments. While the horticulture part was with the garden department, the civil related and electrical related works were monitored by the engineering department. To ensure smooth operations it was decided to bring out a comprehensive contract,” said a senior official from the Garden department.
The 2 year contract specifies the kind of work to be undertaken, their duration and the penalty NMMC will impose on failure of completing the work as described. The work includes weeding/ unwanted grass around the shrubbery, lawn area, ornamental and flowering trees. Watering of all plant, trees & lawn area throughout the year replacing shrubbery, trees and lawn regularly.
Application of fungicides, pesticides, fertilizers and manures as per requirement. “ Right from timely opening and closing of gardens, to scientifically undertaking tree pruning activities or getting repair works done immediately will be monitored by officers through the Key performance index application. On finding that works meant to be done on a daily basis or delays seen in getting maintenance work done will attract penalties ranging from ₹1500 to ₹7000 per day on the contractor concerned,” said the official.
Residents had recently expressed concerns after finding tree belts in various parts of the city wilting away. Complaints were raised with authorities questioning the reason for not watering the plants. “The hundreds of plantations done in the Jewel of Navi Mumbai area have completely dried. The scenario exists in most of the gardens as well. It was high time that the administration implemented corrective measures,” said a resident, Dharmesh Barai.