pune if the citys elected representatives have their way in the near future you may be able to stroll through the woods in your own neighbourhood a year ago forest gardens were barely heard of but ever since the first project took shape thanks to a push by former environment minister prakash javadekar mlas have been lining up to set up a van udyan in their constituency forest officials confirmed representatives from kothrud vadgaon sheri and hadapsar constituencies have been foremost in the list dont be surprised if a stroll through the woods is a short walk away from your home in pune in the near future for forest gardens which took shape in the city about a year ago with push from then union minister for environment forest and climate change prakash javadekar are suddenly all the rage among the citys elected representativesso far the warje nagar van udyan and mohammadwadi nagar van udyan anand van have been opened to the public since may 2015 and september 2015 respectively both projects were implemented under the state governments nagar van udyan yojana 201516 of the state governmentwhile there were few takers for the gardens initially seeing the success and attention that the projects have received since their development members of legislative assembly mlas from the city are now lining up to get a forest garden in their respective constituency say forest officials these include mlas of kothrud vadgaon sheri and hadapsar constituenciesin fact mla for vadgaon sheri jagdish mulik has sent in proposals for two forest gardens in his constituency one of these is at kharadi near wtc premises while the other is in vadgaon sheri i have met forest officials at least four to five times for the proposals we want these in our area as forest gardens are very close to the experience of being in a natural forest while also creating a joggingwalking track for citizens he saidas of now mulik is awaiting budget approval asked as to how long it would take mulik said that the proposals were awaiting approval for budget were planning the design work for the gardens and we have already currently the design work for the gardens is being planned we have received approval for the wall component at a cost of rs15 lakh each once the walls are ready it will be easier to protect and plan the premises it should be completed in about a year once the budget is approved he explained apart from mulik mlas medha kulkarni and yogesh tilekar have also sought a forest garden each in their constituency promotion of the urban forest ecosystem finds a mention in the environment ministrys draft national forest policy 2016 and so the concept has received a major boost which in turn gave a boost to the forest gardens is essentially thanks to the promotion of urban forest ecosystems finding a mention in the draft national forest policy 2016 which was placed in the public domain by the moef on