Plantation under way at a conservancy lane at Gautam Nagar in Bhubaneswar.Picture by Ashwinee Pati
Bhubaneswar, March 5: In a bid to make the city green, a councillor has taken up the cudgels to plant saplings in the space available in the conservancy lanes.
A conservancy lane is an empty space between two rows of quarters or plots. These lanes were mandatory in the colonies that were designed as per the master plan of the new capital way back in early fifties and sixties.
Conservancy lanes are mainly seen at Saheed Nagar, Satya Nagar, Ashok Nagar, Bapuji Nagar, Forest Park, Nageswar Tangi, Bapuji Nagar, Surya Nagar, Nayapalli, parts of Jaydev Vihar, Gautam Nagar and Buddha Nagar areas.
Seema Nayak, councillor of ward No. 55, of Nageswar Tangi, has started the beautification work at Gautam Nagar in association with Green World Trust, an agency engaged in plantation activities across the city.
'There are 15 conservancy lanes at Gautam Nagar, but five are now completely or partially encroached upon by people. So, we have to do the plantation work in 10 lanes. Each conservancy lane in Gautam Nagar is of 12,000 square feet area and 100 to 120 saplings will be planted in each lane,' said Seema.
Nrupesh Nayak, who has earlier done plantation work at Nayapalli, Gandamunda, Bhimatangi, Pokhariput and Nageswartangi, said: 'The message through this plantation programme is to encourage other councillors to take up such work in their wards so that we can have more green cover. The city is becoming a concrete jungle with rapid urban development. Plantation is the need of the hour.'
Ambika Sahu, a resident of Gautam Nagar, said: 'The initiative by the councillor and the trust in our area will be an inspiration for many.'
Seema's initiative came in the wake of another such initiative by Saswati Mishra, a councillor of ward No. 30 (Saheed Nagar) who has transformed two highly polluted conservancy lanes into beautiful recreational spaces along with garden- at a minimum cost.
In both the cases, they got immense help from their husbands who have been councillors in the past. While Seema's husband Nrupesh now heads the Green World Trust, Saswati's husband Umanath works as an activist to keep the city clean and green with innovative and low-cost alternatives.