Iron fencing on the banks of the Beleghata canal has disappeared within 24 hours of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee launching an afforestation programme. This has prompted the civic authorities to make a decision to replace the iron bars with brick pillars.

?We are yet to complete the cost evaluation for replacing the iron angles with concrete castings and brick pillars,? director-general (civil) Uday Shankar Sengupta said on Thursday. More than Rs 1 crore will be needed to fence the 14-km stretch on both sides of the canal, he added.

The chief minister launched the afforestation programme on Independence Day on Chaulpatty Road.

The Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) spent about Rs 10 lakh on fencing a km of the canal bank with iron angles and barbed wire for the inaugural function. Some of the angles were stolen on Monday night.

?We have recovered several iron angles from the canal on Thursday,? said mayoral council member (parks and gardens) Faiyaz Ahmed Khan.

Civic engineers say that fearing that police may search their shanties or scrap dealers? yards, the thieves abandoned the stolen angles in the canal.

The state environment department and the CMC have drawn up a scheme for afforestation on both banks of the nine-km-long canal, from Maniktala to the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass, via Khalpool. The state government has agreed to release Rs 70 lakh for the project.

?The theft of the iron railings along the canal is not an isolated case. After manhole covers, these are prime targets of drug addicts and ragpickers,? mayoral council member Khan said.

?The condition of the fencing at the north-west corner of Manohardas Tarag, opposite Oberoi Grand, is quite bad. About 15 months ago, the Hooghly River Bridge Commissioners had spent over Rs 50 lakh to spruce up the area. Two families of pavement-dwellers have taken possession of a shelter inside the fencing by breaking open the decorative iron railings,? he said.

Borough X chairman Arup Biswas said more than 250 complaints had been lodged with Charu Market, Lake and New Alipore police stations against the theft of manhole covers over the past six months, but to no avail.

The civic authorities have decided to hold a meeting with the city police on the theft of railings and manhole covers. Dealers of scrap iron will be warned against procuring stolen CMC property.

?Only if drug addicts and ragpickers don?t find buyers for stolen civic property can the incidence of thefts go down,? asserted director-general (civil) Sengupta.