MCD to do cover-up on its fountains, stagnant pools of water

NEW DELHI: Fear of a possible dengue outbreak has finally stirred the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) into action against the 132 fountains in its parks. In astonishing figures from the agency's horticulture department, 113 of a total of 132 of these fountains are in non-working condition. Worse, the broken fountains have stagnant water, a perfect habitat for the dengue mosquito.
It's now that MCD has decided to do away with the non-working fountains, fill them up and replace them with landscaped mounds.Announcing this decision, standing committee chairman Vijender Gupta said: "The non-reparable fountains will be demolished. Individual councillors will decide the fate of fountains that can be repaired."
The chairman's decision came in response to complaints by several councillors in Wednesday's standing committee meeting. Said one of the councillors, "While water flow in some of the fountains in my ward has been stopped as a norm to prevent mosquito breeding, a majority of them are not working and perhaps not even reparable. Residents in my area are asking why funds should be sunk in fountains when they actually eat up space in the park." Other civic body representatives agreed with the councillor since fountains in most of their own wards were non-functional.
Surprisingly, these claims appeared before Vijender Gupta without any figures to back them up. He has now asked for the exact figures of working and non-working fountains. (TOI has the relevant figures from the horticulture department of the MCD).
A calculation using the corporation's own figures shows a mere 14% of the fountains in working condition. Of the total 30 fountains between two of the 12 zones, Sadar Paharganj and Shahdara (north), not a single one is in working condition. Some of the other zones with a poor count of working fountains are Karol Bagh (3 working out of 16), Rohini (1 working out of 16) and Shahdara (south) (3 working out of 29).
Despite the dismal figures, chairman of garden committee Ved Gupta is optimistic. "Repairing a fountain costs between Rs 5,000 and Rs 50,000 depending on the size, which the corporation can foot easily, so the reparable fountains will be revived." He wasn't particularly worried about the accumulation of stagnant water. "There is a way to pump out the rainwater. The fear of dengue mosquito breeding is therefore unfounded," he added.
The decision on the fountains comes some two weeks after mayor Arti Mehra announced the corporation's goals of up keeping Delhi's parks before the Commonwealth Games. Although she made no mention of repairing broken fountains, with the recent plan to replace them with landscaped mounds, it is doubtful that resources exist to carry out the landscaping.
poulomi.mehta@timesgroup.com