Parks are meant to add beauty to the surroundings of the city. Parks are also a good time-spending venue for all ages, mostly for joggers, walkers and the like. But some parks in the city, which are poorly maintained, have become grazing ground for stray cattle.
The A.P. Prashanth Park, located at the southern end of Helipad Road in K.C. layout, is a perfect example for the negligence of authorities.
Although the Park is developed at a cost of Rs. 23 lakh sanctioned under the Chief Minister’s Rs. 100 Crore Special Grant for the city, the Park is in a shambles, with poor or nil maintenance.
Terms of stray cattle, which manage to enter the park, graze everything green in the park, thus making the park look barren. As parks come under basic amenities, the local bodies — be it MCC or MUDA — should take up the responsibility of maintaining and developing the park. But the dismal state of A.P. Prashanth Park has left on to wonder whether our administration is so helpless.
The park has several shortcomings — the park is not wholly secured thus making it easy for cattle to enter the park and the grills have fallen apart here and there. With cattle grazing freely across the park, the authorities seems to have turned a blind eye and have not even bothered to warn the cattle owners. But what is disappointing is that the public too have become mute spectators to the sorry state of the park.
While some of the saplings planted by the authorities have become fodder to stray cattle, others have wilted under the scorching sun, as they are not watered for months.
The situation in some other parks in the city is more or less the same. The surrounding residents have urged the authorities to take measures for the up keep of this important park. Meanwhile, former Deputy Mayor Vanitha Prasanna, who represents Ward No. 65, under which the park comes, responding to the pleas, said that necessary measures will be taken for securing and maintaining the park.
Also, several measures will be taken to enhance the beauty of this strategically located park, she added.
By S.B. Devaraj
There are many more parks like that. There are two parks like that near my house. One of them is a place for stray dogs to sleep (has fencing so cattle won’t enter). The other one in front of my house has fences and a huge old gate which is always open (cannot close it). There is a children’s park inside which has no sand and all wild plants and thorn grow there. Recently, stones are put around the park for walking which is not fully complete (been 4-5 months). Many cows and bulls will sit there making the park unusable. This is near ksrtc bus depot in kuvempunagar. There are 3 such parks in the area and one thing i notice is that all the parks have lights and at night, many of them are off. I can often spot people sitting and doing many kinds of activities there since it’s dark and no one can see that clearly. Also, next to the park there is a transformer where a huge hole was dug to put pipelines (front of govt degree college kuvempunagar). This was done like 1.5 years ago and wild plants have grown. There are no proper lights there except for the parks lights which offer little light (which will be off all the time) and i, myself have tripped and fallen few times.