Bhubaneswar, May 30: The municipal corporation has come up with an array of plans that includes maintaining colony parks and setting up two modern abattoirs.

At its monthly meeting held today, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation today decided to hire an independent agency to take care of ill-maintained colony parks across the city.

At present, the civic body controls 20 colony parks in the city. Earlier, the onus was on respective resident welfare associations to maintain these parks. After developing the parks, the corporation used to hand them over to the associations in the fifth year. It was the duty of these associations to maintain the parks.

"The earlier mode of maintaining the parks through the resident welfare associations was successful in a few cases, while it was a failure elsewhere. Many parks remain in a bad shape. So, we have decided to take up the work. A tender will be floated to select a private agency for the job," said mayor Ananta Narayan Jena. The mayor said non-cooperation of welfare associations was responsible for the poor state of the parks.

In addition to maintaining the parks, civic officials have proposed to build two modern abattoirs in the city. Sources said the councillors had been asked to identify land for the project. The abattoirs will help avoid open slaughter of animals and ensure scientific slaughtering of goats and lambs. "The construction of the first such abattoir at Gadakana is on in full swing. It is likely to be completed in the next six to eight months. We believe that one abattoir is not sufficient to meet the residents' demand. So, we have decided to build more such facilities. Each one will come up over one acre," said a civic body official.

Besides, the corporation will further form a special sanitation team to undertake cleanliness drives along conservancy lanes, which are otherwise dumped with waste, including construction and demolition debris. The space between rows of houses are called conservancy lane.

The poorly maintained lanes have triggered the fear of various diseases.

"The civic body rarely cleans the conservancy lanes that remain unhygienic and invite deadly diseases. We had taken up the cleanliness job at some places in our locality. But we stopped the process as we didn't get any support. I hope the civic body is serious about their decision and will clean the lanes appropriately," said Unit-II resident Kalicharan Jena.

In another development, the civic body got a favourable verdict in the Bhuasani dumping yard issue from the National Green Tribunal. The hearing was held today in Calcutta and deputy municipal commissioner Srimanta Mishra was present.

The representatives of Daruthenga village had filed a miscellaneous case to stay the public hearing on the dumping yard issue, which is scheduled on June 6. However, the tribunal today rejected the case, Mishra said. The tribunal will hold its final hearing in the case on July 31.