Mummy, not the park!

Mummy, not the park!
The pavement in front of Lakshman Rao Park on R V Road is being fouled up by metro workers
SHASHWATHI BHANUKUMAR


The ongoing Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) work is attracting a lot of criticism from the residents of R V Road.
The visitors to Lakshman Rao parks C and D on R V Road simply cannot bear the foul smell emanating from park C. About 10 to 12 sheds have been built for the workers of the metro project along the footpath in front of the park. The problem starts here. “They urinate on the footpath and this is giving out such a bad smell,” says Captain Prabhakar, a resident of the area. What’s more, the workers have tied strings to dry their clothes. If this isn’t bad enough, there are water tanks placed at the end of the footpath. “They also take bath on the footpath itself in full view of the public,” says a frequent visitor to the park.
Complaints made to the BMRCL have gone in vain. “The BMRCL promised that they would maintain the place but that has not happened. When we had a meeting with the BMRCL about a month ago, they said that they would do their best to maintain cleanliness. But the whole place is stinking. As a result, the number of people visiting the park has also decreased,” says Lakshmikanth, another resident of Jayanagar 6th Block where the park is located.
When contacted, the BMRCL Public Relations Officer (PRO), Yeshavanth Chavan, said, “Let me inspect the place first before I pass comments.”
Another problem is that the swings and slides have been dismantled in park D. “It has been this way for the past one and a half years or so. All we want is for them to make the park functional and child-friendly again,” says Prabhakar.
FACT FILE
R V Road comes under Reach 4 of the BMRCL project and the metro work here is expected to be completed by September 2012.
The R V Road and Jayanagar stations have been awarded to M/s IVRCL-CR18G at a cost of Rs 71.52 crore.
60 per cent of piling work has been completed in the R V Road area