Nov. 28: The soil conservation department has sought an additional sum of Rs 50 lakh from Dispur to carry out landscaping and plantation at the National Games venues.

The department has placed a proposal for supplementary funds before the state planning and development department.

So far Dispur has released Rs 1 crore for the project, but the costs escalated after turfing of the football ground and the practice arena of the main stadium at Sarusajai were also included in the project.

A source in the department said Dispur had released Rs 1 crore for the project, which initially included beautification of the venues through landscaping and plantation of decorative hedges and fast-growing trees on an area covering 50,000 square m in and around the National Games stadiums at Sarusajai and Tapesia. But the funds requirement shot up after the department was also entrusted with the job of preparing the playgrounds.

“Preparation and turfing of the football and practice grounds, which covers an area of 14,000 square metres, is nearing completion and more than 70 per cent of work is over. Approximately, Rs 60 lakh was spent on the entire exercise, which is likely to be completed by the end of this year,” the source said.

According to the initial estimates submitted by the soil conservation department, Rs 11 lakh was needed for collecting and planting the fast-growing trees, which also includes several ornamental varieties. An additional amount of Rs 60 lakh was needed for landscaping the two plots at Sarusajai complex, while another Rs 20 lakh for the National Games stadium at Tapesia in Sonapur.

The project is a collaborative effort of the soil conservation department and the Stup Consultants, a leading architecture firm.

The state government has engaged the Stup Consultants to design the infrastructure for the National Games slated to be held in the city in October next year, while the stadiums are being constructed by the construction giant, Larsen & Toubro (L&T).

According to the source, the landscaping and plantation project has been slightly delayed because L&T could not clear some of the sites. “Construction material has been dumped in several of the proposed sites. Work could not be started at several places because heavy machinery was left lying there. We can’t start work unless the sites are cleared,” he added. He said the main objective of the project is to improve the look of the stadiums by making them more green and to give a vegetative cover to the newly filled up areas. Duranta, brindaban, phoenix, Japanese rose and hibiscus are some of the decorative shrubs and hedges being used by the department.

“Some of the fast-growing tree species of height not less than 1.8 m that will be planted are cookie, neem, kadam, magnolia, silver oak, cacia, sonaru, radhasura and krishnasura,” said the source.