The Coimbatore Corporation has formed a Horticulture Wing to deal exclusively with the creation and maintenance of green spaces in the city, such as full-fledged parks, the ones along roads and pavements and also the greenery in traffic islands.
The physical maintenance of the green spaces will be outsourced. The wing will conceive landscapes, provide technical expertise in designing the green spaces and oversee the maintenance, Corporation Commissioner Anshul Mishra has said.
“We created 40 new parks, spread over 18 acres in various parts of the city, in the run-up to the World Classical Tamil Conference (held here from June 23 to 27). There are a lot of questions from many people on how we are going to maintain these. So, we have formed the wing to take up this task alone,” he said.
“We already have 46 parks and these will also be brought under the wing. Besides, the wing will plan new parks also. The Corporation has a specialist in Botany, posted as Park Supervisor,” the Commissioner said, explaining how the Corporation proposed to go about the task of creating and maintaining a green city by getting together a team of officials and a road map prepared for it.
The wing would be headed by the City Engineer and have the Park Supervisor and a Junior Engineer as the other officials. As the parks came under the Town Planning Department, engineers from this section would also be involved, the Commissioner said.
The new wing would also handle the planting of saplings across the city to increase the tree cover. With many trees cut for road widening ahead of the conference, the city and its surroundings were given a target of planting one lakh saplings. The Corporation's share alone was 10,000 saplings.
Already, 1,000 saplings had been planted at the Corporation's compost yard and sewage farm at Vellalore. The rest of the saplings would be planted in the parks all over the city, the Commissioner said.
