Municipal Corporation of Gurugram plans to turn city's vacant spaces into parks

To deal with the challenge of receding green cover in the Millennium City, the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) plans to utilise vacant spaces in the city by developing them into parks.

Presently, most of the vacant spaces in Gurugram have turned into garbage dump yards.

With lack of green spaces becoming one of the major issues causing inconvenience to city residents, MCG has decided to develop new parks in the city by utilising large vacant spaces.

The Corporation has also started taking ideas for the design and structure of the new parks, which will be developed by it.

The civic body has already started advertising through social media platforms for collaboration for development of new parks.

Besides enhancing green cover in the city, MCG also plans to develop other structures, such water harvesting, jogger's park and facilities for children in these parks.

The Corporation has stated that it is also willing to get into a partnership with citizens' bodies for development and subsequent maintenance of the parks.

Officials at MCG have started earmarking funds for these parks and began scouting for locations for developing them. To reduce the cost of maintenance of parks, the Corporation plans to later hand them over to resident welfare associations (RWA) in the city.

As part of its effort to fund maintenance of parks, the Corporation has already started paying the RWAs.

According to MCG officials, of the almost 500 parks in Gurugram, around 200 will be maintained by RWAs.

"MCG plans to develop new parks in the city and we have already started a programme where in vacant spaces in the city will be turned into green parks. However, a major challenge that is being faced by the Corporation is shortage of capital in developing new parks. The budget, which is earmarked for horticulture by MCG, goes into maintaining the current set of parks in the city rather than developing new ones. We will provide the RWAs with the budget and they will manage the cost of maintaining the parks. This will save MCG the money and we can develop new parks in the city," said Amit Khatri, Additional Commissioner of MCG.