Efforts to outsource maintenance of parks face obstacles

Tiruchi Corporation faces challenges in outsourcing park maintenance, plans to seek financial support from residents and businesses.

Tiruchi Corporation’s efforts to outsource the maintenance of public parks in the city have hit a roadblock due to challenges in identifying private agencies for the purpose.

Earlier, the civic body outsourced three major parks in the city - Ibrahim Park on West Boulevard Road, Chinnasamy Park on Rajaram Road and RS Puram South Park in Khajamalai - to a private agency for maintenance on a pilot basis.

Following a satisfactory outcome of the pilot project, the Corporation planned to rope in more such agencies for the maintenance of all public parks in the city to reduce expenditure.

Under the project, the private agency will clean the park and will be responsible for the maintenance of the entire range of facilities in the park for which user fees can be collected from the visitors. Corporation officials will also monitor the performance of the agency with field visits. However, the civic body faced challenges as no agency came forward to take up the maintenance of the parks.

Amid increasing complaints of poor upkeep of public parks, the civic body has now planned to seek financial support from residents and welfare associations, prominent businesses or industrial houses to operate and maintain the parks under the Namakku Naame scheme just as it did back in 2022.

According to sources, there are around 300 public parks in all five zones of the city, and the maintenance cost in each major public park is more than ₹2 lakh per annum.

Residents and activists, however, point out how the Corporation’s previous attempts to engage welfare associations failed to evoke a good response. “Even welfare associations in prime neighbourhoods have shown no interest in sponsoring the maintenance of parks in their area. The authorities will have to seek other means of funding for maintaining the parks,” said K.C. Neelamegam, an environmental activist.