This time around the KCB discovered to its chagrin that Round Up, a chemical from the private company although effective in small areas, has not succeeded in tackling the fast growth of the weed on the expanse of the Mula river.

Come summer and the residents of Khadki have to face the ire of the mosquitoes which swarm the area. Every year, the KCB battles with the weed and finds to its dismay that it continues to flourish despite all measures taken to tackle the menace. And hence the only option left to the cantonment board is using the manual labour which is hard to come by.

Cantonment executive officer Ajay Kumar told The Indian Express that the board had come to an arrangement with the Pune Municipal Corporation to provide manual labour for removing the water hyacinth near the Holkar bridge. However, instead of the promised 100 men, they were able to send only around 20-odd people for this purpose, Ajay Kumar said. ``We have removed the booms that stop the weeds near the Holkar Bridge. Around 30 men are at work to remove the hyacinth,'' he said. The CEO revealed that they had ordered 100 litres of Round Up estimated at Rs 45,000 on an experimental basis to checking the hyacinth.

Upon spraying the chemical, the weeds burn out and begin the dry. However, the sheer magnitude of growth of hyacinth proved to be too much for the chemical. ``We were forced to abandon its use since it will prove to be very expensive for the board,'' he said, explaining that perhaps mechanical methods would be useful.

It may be mentioned here that BEG had initiated an effort along with the board and College of Military Engineering (CME) last year to manually remove the weeds. The booms placed across the river had to be removed for want of adequate manpower to remove the gathered weeds which had only resulted in more mosquitoes.

This time, however, the cantonment board is on its own, with a little support from the Pune Municipal Corporation. However, barring manual labour the board has little hope of removing the obstinate weeds. For the residents, this would mean putting up with the menace until the arrival of monsoon.