Bangalore Race Course to be shifted

Bangalore Race Course to be shifted

Bangalore (PTI): The Karnataka government has decided to shift the Race Course, a major landmark in the heart of this city, to a new location, Public Works Minister C M Udasi said on Tuesday.

The new location has not yet been finalised, he said during question hour in the Legislative assembly.

Responding to R Roshan Baig (Congress), Udasi, standing in for Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa who is away in Delhi, said the government proposed to build underground parking lots in the area where the race course is now located.

Baig asked the government to retain the area, which now houses the Turf Club, as an "open space" and stressed the need to ensure that it was not handed over to private builders to put up "concrete structures".

To another question from Baig, Udasi said the first phase of the "Freedom Park," coming up on the land where the Central Jail was located before it was shifted to city outskirts, was expected to be opened on November one (State formation day).

This phase, being built at a revised estimated cost of Rs 10.27 crores, was nearing completion and would be ready in September-October, the Minister said.

Baig said it was disappointing that the park, just half a kilometre from Vidhan Soudha, the State Secretariat, had not been completed even nine years after the jail was relocated.

He suggested that the freedom park be named after former Chief Minister late Gundu Rao, who, he said, had first mooted the idea of shifting the jail.