The Garden Department of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), which is the regulatory authority for maintaining green cover in the city, is suffering from huge manpower shortage as the department has only two permanent and nine contractual staff. In recent time, Nagpur city witnessed rampant illegal tree felling cases and the offenders are committing this crime by taking the benefits of this grey spot in the department as the staff is unable to keep vigil in every case happening in the city. Currently, the Garden Department has two permanent posts -- one Garden Superintendent and one Tree Inspector.

 

Whereas, nine contractual staff are somehow managing the increasing tree felling cases in the city. “We have a huge shortage of manpower in the department as we just two persons are handling the daily workload of the city,” Amol Chorpagar, Garden Superintendent told ‘The Hitavada’. “The city is distributed in 10 zones and every zone requires atleast two permanent staff. However, we two are handling every zone and we are getting little help from existing nine other staff,” Chorpagar added. NMC recently conducted a recruitment process in the department for the post of four permanent staff. In that recruitment process, more than 3,000 candidates applied and scrutiny of candidates is underway. “The appointment of four permanent staff is not going to reduce our workload as we require atleast 10 more employees in the department,” said the Garden Superintendent. As per the information, the department is facing such a staff crunch first time in the history and it should be addressed as early as possible.

 

“Earlier, the awareness about trees among citizen was less. Thanks to social media, people are now much aware about trees and they come in huge numbers on daily basis to register complaint against illegal tree felling. It is difficult for us to reach every corner of the city when every infrastructure project demands tree felling,” said Chorpagar. The size of the city has expanded drastically. Earlier, in 2004, there were 37 gardens in the city and now, we have 204 gardens. As far as zones are concerned, there is requirement of 10 officers each in every zone and ten other staff who can take care of gardens in the city, he added.