CHANDIGARH:When it comes to splurging tax-payers’ money, no department of the Chandigarh
Administration does not wish to lag behind to others. There are numerous instances where tax
payers money had been splurged without think twice. This was proved by the Municipal Corporation
opening its purse-strings to install fountains across the city to make it ‘City of Fountains’ by spending
crore of rupees. On the other, after that scant attention to their maintenance is turning these into
dustbins and breeding sites fo Dengue mosquitos.
Since 2007 the corporation has installed over a dozen of fountains across the city costing
over Rs 15 crore in a bid to add beauty to the city. Over 21 more water features are in the pool. The
corporation has kept Rs 16 crore for this purpose during the fiscal 2011-12. It is revealed that each of
the fountain cost the corporation between Rs 10 lakh to Rs 60 lakh. In the name of beautify the city,
crore of rupees have been wastages on (mis) conceived plans. “Someone should put a full stop to
this waste of public money. Instead of an addition to the beauty of the city to make it ‘smart’ such
features are getting ugly in shape and character, ” said most of the residents.
Most of the fountains across the city are either dried up or gathering moss and waste.
Any positive imporession that you may have had of fountains evaporates completely at the sight
once claimed to be the pride of Chandigarh. Paucity of funds and shortage of staff were the reasons
for their neglect but an official of the Administration said that it was not so. “Its become an habit
with us we start features to add in the beauty of the city with much fan fare but we do not think
about the spendings on their maintenance, ” added he.
In some cases parts of fountain are missing. The fountains in Sector 17 Plaza and in
Sector 40 park in a bad shape inviting Dengue mosquitos to breed and spread the disease. Clusters
are not working, snag in electricity connection, shortage of water make these unfunctional. These
have turned into easy dumping ground for plastic waste and eateries that have sprung up into it.
In the absence of regular maintenance mechanism, fountains are getting bad to worse
day by day. Surprisingly, it escaped the eyes of the authority that may be. Sources in the corporation
revealed that the corporation has plans to have reveloving globe fountain in Sector 44, multi-
coloured musical fountain in Sector 30, musical bybrid fountain with free frequency of 49 and 47, 15
and double dome fountain in Sector 21 cry for attention.
Fountains not roads is the priority of the municipal corporation.