Private bodies to maintain GHMC parks?

If the current status of city parks is anything to go by, then it is certain that the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is set to privatise maintenance of these spaces.

According to Corporation officials, upkeep of parks under its fold has become a difficult task resulting in contemplating to hand over the job to private entities.

The move has reportedly come after witnessing the condition of big parks that have become dump yards due to negligence of the maintenance staff. In addition, there are hardly any visitors coming to these places.

Famous names like the Indira Park, J Vengal Rao Park and KBR Park have made it to the list of public spaces losing their sheen.

Some of the reasons factored for this include irregular payment of salaries to the maintenance staff, lack of water supply (in case of Indira Park), improper toilet facilities and a defunct facilities installed in the play areas earmarked for children in the parks and the like.

This sorry state of affairs has ended up GHMC to earn only Rs 1 crore annual revenue for its 1,017 parks as against the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) making about Rs 65 lakh from maintaining a mere 40 parks.

Confirming this is a recent press communiqué from the GHMC that said that the city parks will be handed over to the private firms for proper maintenance.

However, when contacted senior officials of the GHMC’s Bio Diversity Wing (BDW) denied any such move and added that only medians and Traffic Island would be handed over to a few private firms.

Denying the privatisation move on Indira Park, an official told The Hans India since there is no adequate water supply there officials were asked to rectify the old gravity pipeline laid from Hussain Sagar Lake to the park for watering the lawns.

But, contrary to what the official claimed, Shamala, in-charge at Indira Park said that the park’s maintenance has been given to private contractors and the workers are paid on time.

However, workers alleged that they are being exploited by private contractors. “Even if we get salaries huge sums are being deducted citing one or the other pretext,” said a worker there.