In yet another glaring instance of civic apathy at Police Line Takli Lake, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation’s (NMC) complete lack of post-plantation maintenance has left over half of 150 freshly-planted Bakul saplings to withere within barely a month of being planted around the lake. Coming hot on the heels of reports highlighting the weed-choked water body and an abandoned, foul-smelling artificial immersion tank, the dying green belt along the lake’s perimeter also exposes the civic body’s hollow environmental commitments.

 

Official data from the civic body’s geotagged plantation dashboard reveals that 150 saplings of Spanish Cherry (Mimusops elengi), commonly known as Bakul in Marathi and Maulsari in Hindi, were formally planted around the lake boundaries on September 25, 2026. As per the details mentioned in the dashboard, the drive was recorded by field officer Rohit Meshram and officially approved on the municipal system the very same afternoon, was envisioned to create a thriving green buffer around the water body. However, ground reality paints a dismal picture of sheer neglect. Deprived of basic watering and upkeep amid the harsh October weather, more than half of the young plants have dried up, while others are on the verge of drying out.

 

Though staked with bamboo supports and fitted with official QR-coded identification tags, rows of saplings now stand parched, their foliage browned and brittle in the dry, rocky soil. A few saplings were uprooted while roots of some saplings have been exposed above the ground. This exposes improper plantation and poor maintenance by the department concerned. When ‘The Hitavada’ contacted the NMC’s Garden Department, officials, including Sanghadeep Fulekar, Garden Supervisor, claimed that plantation and its maintenance does not fall under their jurisdiction. They said it might have been handled by NMC’s Public Health Engineering (PHE) Department. However, calls to PHE officials went unanswered. Caught in classic inter-departmental buck-passing, precious green cover continues to perish at Police Line Takli Lake.