A signage lies uprooted near Ekamra Square-Airport Road. Pictures by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, June 2: People’s wayward behaviour is affecting the city’s beautification drive, said a senior official of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation.

A signage on the Ekamra Square-Airport Road is lying uprooted as authorities turned a blind eye to it, while steel barriers meant for installation along this road have been stolen.

These incidents come in the wake of vandalisation of a statue of Newton near the Institute of Physics on the Acharya Vihar-Sainik School stretch about two weeks ago.

The corporation is trying to identify the people who were involved in such incidents.

Unless the vandals were brought to the book, the authorities could not be sure about the future of the beautification drive undertaken in other parts of the city, said an official of the corporation.

A mermaid near the wall of the Regional Museum of Natural History and the 12 different sculptors depicting the zodiac signs have enhanced the beauty of the place and the nearby road.

The institutes, which benefit from the drive, have undertaken to maintain the beautified stretches in their areas.

Earlier, the much talked-about Kalinga Kanan beautification project opposite the New AG Colony area had also faced problems following theft of the electrical equipment.

The lights, pumps, electrical wires and switching machines were stolen by thieves of a nearby slum in April 2011 following which the corporation’s environment officer Bikram Keshari Routray filed complaints with Nayapalli police.

Routray also filed another complaint with Capital police station last year in which installations were damaged near AG Square.

Meetaketan Patnaik, an artist, said: “Beautification of the city is not only the responsibility of the civic authorities or the Bhubaneswar Development Authority . The citizens should think that the beautification projects belong to them and they should try to keep them intact.”

The beautification projects are also suffering because of lack of maintenance. The beautification objects installed at different places need regular maintenance.

Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena said: “The old maintenance contracts are continuing in many beautification projects. The AG Square- Raj Bhavan stretch is an example where a beautiful fountain was created in January this year.”

“We have approached several organisations for maintenance of the old projects and they will shortly launch the projects with some changes. I think the Kalinga Kanan project will be revived very soon.”

In another development, the corporation and the Bhubaneswar Development Authority are trying to get more stretches between Jaydev Vihar and Nandankanan beautified with installation of fountains and trees.