VietNamNet Bridge - At a meeting with Hanoi residents earlier this week, the city chairman Nguyen Duc Chung said that every year Hanoi paid VND53 billion ($2.3 million) to cut grass and prune trees along the 24 km Thang Long Highway. 

Hanoi paid $2.3 million a year to trim grass and trees along Thang Long Avenue.

But this is not the only road in the capital city where the local government had to pay millions of USD to cut grass and prune trees each year. The total spending for this task is estimated at up to $31 million a year. The news immediately stirred up a public controversy.

According to statistics of the Public Procurement Department of the Ministry of Planning & Investment in 2015, eight companies won bids to take care of trees and lawns. Most of the projects were put up for public tenders.

In this list, the project to maintain trees and lawns along the Thang Long Highway (from Km1 + 800 to Km 4 + 900) has the largest value - VND95 billion for 45 months, since April 2015. On average, the cost of pruning trees and cutting grass for 1km of the road is over VND680 million ($33,000) a month. With more than 3km road, this firm was paid about VND2.1 billion ($100,000)/month.

Another firm won a VND41 billion ($2 million) bid to take care of the trees and grass along Le Trong Tan and Phuc La - Van Phu road, for 45 months. This companyearns VND900 million ($45,000)/month for cutting grass along 11km of road.

As the expenses for cutting grass are huge, Chairman Chung said Hanoi decided to stop cutting grass and trimming trees along roads in July 2016. This task will be maintained for major roads only and several flower gardens around Hoan Kiem Lake.

Earlier this year, the Hanoi People's Committee asked the Department of Home Affairs to cooperate with the Hanoi Park and Tree Management Company to set up companies specialized in tree pruning and grass cutting, tree planting, seedling development and park and flower garden management.

The city leaders also asked the company to send staff to China and Singapore to learn tree pruning and planting techniques.

In a related move, Hanoi scheduled the plantation of 45,000 trees along Thang Long Avenue in the near future. At first, about 20,000 palm trees would be planted. The tree-planting would make the city greener from Ba Vi District to the National Convention Centre, the Hanoi Chairman said. 

The capital hopes to create visible changes in tree management in 12 inner districts, including a plan to plant one million trees by 2020. To reach the goal, the city has 

consulted scientists and relevant agencies about the types of trees that should be grown in the city, including flamboyant (Delonix regia), queen’s flower (Lagerstroemia 

speciosa),and dracontomelon (Dracontomelon duperreanum).

Thang Long Avenue, or Lang-Hoa Lac Highway, located west of the city, links the city centre to the former Highway 21A, which is now the starting point of the Ho Chi Minh Highway. It also connects Hanoi's inner areas with satellite urban areas, such as Xuan Mai, Son Tay and other localities. The avenue is 30km long and 140m wide, with six lanes for vehicles.

Thu Ly