Bhubaneswar, May 9: Poor maintenance has badly hit the civic body's efforts to beautify the city through median plantation and graffiti.

Median plantation on various stretches are crying for urgent need of care while wall paintings are peeling off as the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation is looking the other way. At some places, one can also see heaps of garbage lying in front of the walls decorated by graffiti.

The civic body has regularly been taking up median plantation in collaboration with various non-profit agencies and private partners.

Strikingly, private agencies have maintained the medians that fall in their charge well, while the government-maintained medians don a look of civic neglect.

The privately-managed medians - such as those between AG Square and Raj Bhavan Square, Acharya Vihar Square and Sainik School - and the stretches managed by the government - on Janpath, Vidyut Marg or between Jayadev Vihar and Nandankanan - sport completely contrasting pictures.

In January last year, the civic body had roped in Encon Consulting Private Limited as its partner for undertaking median plantation on Vidyut Marg and fixed a year's deadline to complete the project. But strangely enough, the agency had only done the fencing and left the project midway without doing any plantation.

Environmentalists expressed concern time and again over loss of greenery due to expanding city limits and also lack of efforts by the city administration to take up plantation. "The city is rapidly loosing its green cover due to infrastructure work. This is resulting in the rise in the temperature level. There is a need to have a robust mechanism for plantation and the civic body should take it up responsibility," said environmentalist Alok Mohanty.

Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena said they had already intimated the environment wing of the corporation to look into the matter and take up the median plantation work on a priority basis. "We have asked our officials to look into the matter and also issued a showcause notice to Encon. If the agency fails to give a satisfactory reply, it will be disengaged from the job," said Jena.

The wall paintings that were installed across the city for beautification show no promise either. "In many places, pedestrians urinate or spit on the paintings. Dumping of construction materials and other garbage beside the walls also damage the paintings," said Unit VI resident Uttara Acharya.

In 2008, the civic body had initiated the process to paint the walls of the city to portray the state's culture and tradition. The officials had then roped in many renowned artists to take up the job. The artists now say that they had told the civic body that the lifeline of such paintings would not be more than eight years.

"We have painted the boundary walls of Forest Park in 2009. We had then told the civic body that a lifeline of a painting of this type will be about six to eight years since we used various mediums for painting, including acrylic. The walls should be repainted when the original paintings fade," said artist Simanchal Nayak.