Who has the best park in Delhi?

It’s time to bring out the inner gardener in you.

It’s time to bring out the inner gardener in you.

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The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has decided to hold inter-zonal garden competitions for parks maintained by residents' welfare associations (RWAs) each year.

The idea behind the competition is also to facilitate better maintenance of parks in the city.

The competition will be held in parks of all categories including those being maintained by the civic body's horticulture department and those maintained under MCD's new public-private partnership scheme.

The standing committee of the civic body cleared the proposal on Wednesday. And the prize for well-manicured and well-maintained parks is from Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000.

“The MCD maintains nearly 15,000 parks across the Capital and a majority of these parks include smaller colony parks that are difficult to maintain. Organising such competitions will give a boost to the overall development of such parks,” said an MCD official.

As per rules, these parks must have a minimum 33 per cent green cover to be eligible for the competition.

The civic body will also base points on pruning, plantation scheme, flowers in the park, cleanliness and additional features like rain water harvesting, etc.

MCD officials said the civic body plants two lakh saplings every year but most of them do not survive. One of the reasons for organising such a competition is to involve people in maintenance of parks.

Recently, the civic body had started a scheme called Sardar Patel Vriksh Yojana, under which residents can plant a sapling in memory of their loved ones.

Not only this, on Tuesday the civic agency initiated a programme to hand over maintenance of parks in the city to local RWAs and NGOs.