Green City plan sucking state exchequer dry
Source: Hueiyen News Service
Imphal, June 14 2012:
The failure of the grand plan of Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh to make Imphal a Green city has turned into an open loot.
The grand plan was initiated during the last term of the Chief Minister.
Hundreds of saplings; the cost running into several lakhs of rupees were planted during the beautification drive under the PDA.
To protect the plants from stray cattle and facilitate their growth, cement tree-guards were constructed around the plants.
Going by a conservative estimate of Rs 1700 per sapling and tree guard and assuming a thousand saplings were planted a sum of Rs 17,00,000 has been spent.
The end result of the amount of Rs 17 lakhs rupees spent from the state exchequer of a poor state like Manipur is less than 10 surviving plants.
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The reason behind this abject failure is not known or at least not made public.
But Chief Minister O Ibobi has attributed the reason to the small size of the saplings.
It is unfortunate that the government seems to be ignorant of a glaring law of nature that without water a plant can't survive on its own.
Meanwhile, the Chief Minister has started planting larger saplings after wasting an amount which could have supported ten families in poverty ridden Manipur.
And the government is banking on the larger size of the sapling for their survival.
In a state where transparency, planning and quality control are alien; the cost of each larger sapling and tree guard would not be less than Rs 2500 .
However mature these saplings are, they would need constant care for survival.
Without a sound follow up plan; will the act of planting these mature plants be tantamount to yet nothing open loot of the tax payers' money? .
A shop keeper by the name of Ajit Agrawal, who runs a shop in the vicinity of the present works, told this newspaper that workers engaged in the plantation drive are keeping their by cycles chained to the tree guards.
Except receiving water from the rains nobody is watering these plants; in the absence of which it is well nigh impossible for the plants to survive.
A concern department like MAHUD is well advised to take up a scheme of watering these plants at whatever the cost for the plants to survive and realization of the CM's dream.
One Romeo of Uripok Canteen Leirak, has already echoed the concern of the people by expressing doubts about the possibility of further fattening an individual's pocket in the guise of beautifying the city.