Playground space in the city fast shrinking

Playground space in the city fast shrinking

The Hindu

Festivals, rallies obstruct the use of grounds by children

BANGALORE: Parents are concerned over their children remaining indoors and becoming obese and getting addicted to television/computers. People complain about children playing on the streets and obstructing traffic movement.

The reason for both complaints is the lack of playgrounds in the city. Developers concentrate on formation of more and more sites, ignoring the basic necessity of playgrounds for children and elders as well. As a result, open spaces in the city are shrinking day by day.

The already shrinking open spaces and playgrounds become totally unavailable for recreational facilities at least for a couple of months in a year, excluding the rainy season. During the Ganesha festival, they become the venues to install the idol and conduct various programmes.

When there is a public meeting, playgrounds are taken over. During Deepavali, playgrounds are the place to sell firecrackers.

This Deepavali also saw playgrounds being used to sell firecrackers depriving the users of its utility for at least two weeks. The government has made it compulsory to sell firecrackers in open places following a major fire accident two decades ago in the city. However, parents question whether open places mean playgrounds alone.

Their annoyance is but natural, as almost all major playgrounds in every locality resemble firecracker market for over a week. And the preparation to erect stalls selling firecrackers and removing them will consume one more week, while heaps of garbage and pit holes continue to obstruct unhindered usage of these playgrounds.

Two classic examples of misuse of playgrounds are the Malleswaram Ground and the Basavanagudi National College Ground. While the former becomes the venue for any political rally, convention, trade fair and firecracker sale, the latter is a sought after venue for political meetings and other gatherings. And of course, smaller grounds would host other small events throughout the year.

Parents say that it is time the authorities addressed the genuine problems of the future generation.

Besides providing more playgrounds, the authorities should make use of other open places such as "kharab" lands, makeshift platforms on large storm water drains and such other places for sale of firecrackers, they suggest.