Planned to provide shelter to birdlife and a research platform to botany students, the Rs 45-lakh project has been a non-starter reportedly because of a paucity of funds and the lack of public sector involvement.

According to highly placed official sources, practically every municipal commissioner who had assumed office after September 27, 1986 -- the day the foundation stone was laid -- had requested PSUs in and around the city to cooperate in developing the garden, but to no avail.

``To be fair, the VMC, too, has not seriously tried to finance the project itself'', sources said, adding that all it had done to this end was set aside Rs 25,000 in 1986-87. Subsequently, the project was discussed only once more: when the General Board decided in principle to set up the garden on September 20, 1989.

A corporation plot of 150 acres was set aside near the west weir of the Ajwa reservoir for the garden, which was to be first of its kind to be developed by any civic body in Gujarat. Director, Parks and Gardens, Mohanbhai Patel told Express Newsline that apart from developing a green belt, the VMC had also had the noble idea of making botany accessible to the common man.

The VMC had ambitious plans for the park: Patel said they had wanted to plant saplings in the order of family and label each of them with details of its origin, its scientific name, its significance and functions in English, Gujarati and Hindi, all with the help of students of the botany department of M S University.

Providing a glimpse of what the city has lost through the non-materialisation of the project, Patel said a nursery had been planned for tender plants as had a herbarium for rare species. Asked what went wrong in transforming the plans into reality, Patel said, ``Probably the authorities concerned, public sector undertakings and the people at large have not realised its importance."