Rs. 43 lakh for four acres landscaping
Caption: Palace Board Deputy Director T.S. Subrahmanya and others taking a look at the work going on for the gardens at Palace premises.
Mysore, Feb. 18
The beauty of the world-famous Amba Vilas Palace is to be further enhanced with a garden on four acres of land, work on which has already commenced.
The total cost of the garden is Rs. 43 lakh. Tenders were called for laying the garden an year ago when Harsha Gupta was the DC. However, the work was stalled in view of Dasara.
The tender has been awarded to Uthaiah Mangalaraman Company and it has been asked to complete the work in the next three months, said Palace Board Deputy Director T.S. Subrahmanya.
As part of the project, the two fountains on either side of the Palace front region, that are more than six decades old, will be repaired and made to function on a daily basis.
Retaining walls of stones will be constructed along the borders of the garden to prevent flowing away of soil during rains.
The garden measuring 16,400 square metres will have lawns of a variety of grass, more than 50,000 varieties of plants, shrubs and vines of tropical regions.
The soil will be mixed with 25 per cent of chemical fertilisers, 50 per cent farmyard manure and horse dung. The entire garden will be barricaded with granite slabs and small pools of 10ftx10ft will be created as part of the landscaping, with a walkway.
During the tenure of former DC Harsha Gupta, the authorities talked about a garden on the lines of the Moghul Garden in Delhi. But now the plan has been changed and the garden will be laid out in Mysore style as was prevalent during the reign of Mummadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar.
Rain water harvesting
Plans are on the anvil to set up a rain harvesting unit with a storage capacity of one crore litres, said Subrahamnya and added that in the first phase, a rain water harvesting unit with a capacity of six lakh litres has already been established at the Palace premises.
source: http://www.StarofMysore.com / General News / February 18th, 2012