Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has deployed heavy advanced machinery to contain the growth of water hyacinth (Eichhornia) suffocating the city’s water bodies, particularly Ambazari lake. At a press conference held at NMC headquarters, Civil Lines, on Wednesday, Mayor Thakre informed the scribes about three-week deadline set for clearing water hyacinth from the Ambazari lake. She said, currently civic workers are extracting impressive 150 to 200 tonnes of the invasive weed daily. Deputy Mayor Leela Hathibed, and Ruling Party Leader Narendra (Balya) Borkar also were present. At the outset, Mayor Neeta Thakre unveiled an ambitious public-participatory environmental roadmap for the city. She detailed an aggressive blueprint spanning massive afforestation, multi-faceted sanitation initiatives, and targeted infrastructure cleaning directives.

 

A green initiative to plant 5 lakh saplings across the city in a year. Aligning with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s national campaign ‘Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam’, the project will be officially inaugurated on World Environment Day, June 5, at 10 am at Suyog Nagar Garden. The initiative will be launched at the hands of Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, said Mayor. Sharing details of other projects, the Mayor said, the Garden Department, along with the Social Forestry Department, will spearhead the logistics, which involve digging pits and mixing soil and fertilisers ahead of the monsoon rains.

 

To guarantee high survival rates, the NMC will assign localised accountability to zone officers, corporators, and citizen forums like Mohalla committees and senior citizen groups. Saplings will be systematically distributed across public gardens, riverbanks, lake perimeters, outer city fringes, and individual municipal wards. Mayor Thakre also announced launch of a dedicated ‘Environment Conservation Fortnight’ starting from June 5 to International Yoga Day on June 21. Addressing immediate monsoon vulnerabilities, the Mayor issued strict directives to the officials of departments concerned to ensure that the ongoing city-wide nullah cleaning operations are entirely completed within the next 15 days. Additionally, the Mayor clarified that the civic body’s aggressive ‘Mission 100 Days’ anti-encroachment drive will continue relentlessly without pause. Strict legal checkpoints are being enacted to prevent old encroachers from re-occupying public spaces, ensuring that city footpaths remain permanently open for pedestrian transit. 

 

 

Mayor Thakre told the mediapersons that the NMC is planning to purchase another harvest machine from the Autocracy Machinery, which they bought recently for the cleanliness drive. This nearly bought machine help to removes the water hyacinth from low water level areas, the area where other machineries cannot function. The particular machine costs around Rs 1.50 crore, which consumes around 40 litres diesel daily during the cleanliness operations.