Park workers left in the lurch

GHMC’s high-handedness

The municipal staff working in major 1,309 public, civil and theme parks under the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has been not receiving salaries for the past five months.

The contract and regular workers, working for parks’ maintenance in the city informed The Hans India that they have been continuing the job even without salaries fearing that they would be sacked.

"I have been working without payment. The contractor, who pays us has been claiming that the GHMC has neither extended the contract nor it has called for fresh tenders,” said Narsamma, civic worker.

The GHMC’s deal with the contractors ended in June. Of the total parks in the city, the GHMC Urban Bio Diversity wing has been maintaining about 19 public parks, 17 theme parks, 772 parks in residential colonies, which are maintained by Residential Welfare Associations (RWAs) and 428 other parks.

So far, the GHMC has spent about Rs 20 crore for maintaining the greenery in these parks. Besides this, another Rs 50 crore has been spent towards developing new parks.

In spite of this, the condition of almost every park in the GHMC limits is pathetic.

The maximum amount paid by the GHMC to RWAs is Rs 5,000, which is not enough to even hire gardeners, let alone watering plants, maintaining pathways and re-laying lawns or flowerpots. Due to this, many colony parks lie neglected.

"The GHMC has been paying about Rs 3 per square yard for the trees in parks. These payments are irregular and it becomes difficult to maintain the parks. Every quarter, we have to submit the bill to the zonal commissioner to release the amount and we get the money every six months. Meanwhile, we have to maintain them with the RWA’s budget," said Sharath, resident of West Maredpally.

“If this continues the same way the city would turn into concrete jungle,” he added on a gloomy note.

By:Maddy Deekshith