The Delhi government has decided to set up a separate agency to maintain street furniture, new pavements and green stretch developed in the run up to last year's Commonwealth Games amid complaints about their inefficient upkeep.

The agency, to be set up with an initial corpus of Rs 10 crore, will look after the upkeep of street furniture, new pavements and greenery along the roads under the public works department (PWD).

"We have decided to set up the agency to ensure proper upkeep of the street-scaped roads under PWD," a senior official of Delhi government told PTI.

The official said the agency will procure latest equipment to carry out mopping and cleaning of the roads on a regular basis.

"The agency will carry out complete maintenance of street-scaped roads. It will introduce mechanised mopping of the roads for the first time in the city. The agency will spend around Rs 10 crore per annum," the official said.

The city government had spent around Rs 300 crore on streetscapping of 50 km of roads, besides spending around Rs 70 crore on horticulture works.

The decision to set up the agency comes following frequent incidents of theft of expensive tiles, ornamental plants and streetlights, put up by the PWD as part of its beautification drive ahead of the Commonwealth Games.

The agency will function under the PWD.

The PWD had earlier considered examining a proposal to deploy marshals at various areas to stop frequent incidents of theft of expensive tiles and ornamental plants, but later shelved the proposal.

Unhappy over their inefficient upkeep, then Delhi finance minister A K Walia earlier this year had written to all department heads concerned to take urgent steps to ensure proper maintenance of the infrastructure. Walia was divested of finance department in the cabinet reshuffle in February.

Chief minister Sheila Dikshit had set up a special committee in October last year to look after the maintenance of newly created infrastructure as well as those which have been improved.

The government had also announced plans to set up a Project Management Institute to provide suggestion and inputs to ensure proper maintenance and upkeep of the infrastructure.