Make-up Menu: Few citizens have responded to a civic invitation to spruce up Calcutta. A Telegraph picture

Mission Beautification, a civic venture to spruce up the city with people’s participation, has flopped miserably.

The number of suggestions made to the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) by individuals and groups for the Mission is negligible. The number of selfless and concrete proposals is even less.

Over the past five months, only 30 individuals, business organisations, NGOs and Durga puja committees — in a city of 55 million people, several hundred NGOs, three universities and over 1,000 educational institutions — have suggested 180 schemes for the civic body to take up.

The projects concern the revamp of parks, traffic islands, roadside gardens and public urinals. The population-response ratio is 0.00005.

The CMC announced the Mission on August 20 last year by inviting people to spot ugly and shabby public utility places in the city and offer suggestions and concrete proposals for their uplift.

“It is disappointing, but I am not disappointed. It reflects the typical mindset, which is devoid of aspiration for better living. The individuals and institutions seem out to spoil the city’s aesthetics, hygiene, beauty and sanitation for the sake of profit,” said mayoral council member (parks and gardens) Faiyaz Ahmed Khan.

According to civic deputy chief engineer (civil) Soumitra Bhattacharya, among the seven individual respondents, three are women.

Two of the individual respondents — Sarmistha Banerjee and Susanta Mukherjee — are not from Calcutta. They live in Bhadreswar, in Hooghly district. Banerjee has expressed a desire to take up beautification and maintenance of traffic islands at the intersection of Alipore Road and Burdwan Road and at Dhakuria. Mukherjee, too, is interested in sprucing up traffic islands on Rashbehari Avenue and Park Circus.

Clubs, Durga puja committees, housing cooperatives, an outdoor advertising agency, a trust and an anglers’ association are among the organisations that have offered suggestions. Puja committees like Bagbazar Sarbojanin and Ballygunge Sarbojanin want their puja venues revamped.

International Plantation Club of Sarat Bose Road, said Bhattacharya, wished to take up the maintenance of Citizens’ Park, but did not submit a detailed scheme.