Craters, mounds of earth now dot the park

Craters, mounds of earth now dot the park

Who will pay for this fickleness? Time, material and money has gone down the drain, in this instance

Reshma S Nair and Kiran Kumar. Bangalore



Work on the National Military Memorial (NMM) was halted soon after the chief minister's announcement in the legislative council. A temporary structure was being erected in the park, to house labourers working on the project. Craters 16-foot-deep can be seen. Huge piles of excavated mud could be seen. The labourers will now be moved out. Construction material too will have to be shifted. However, a decision on where the memorial structure will be constructed has yet to be taken.
Officials said that the mud that had been dug out would be put back; all temporary structures would be demolished; this, after nearly Rs2 lakh has been spent. "The memorial might have been a beautiful sight. It is sad that a decision has been taken to stop the work. We now have no choice but to move everything out. The labourers will be moved to a different location, and the material too will have to be moved out.
"The craters will be refilled. It is a huge loss of money. And the money already expended could have gone into the construction of the memorial," said Manjunath, the contractor in charge of the NMM work.
The construction of the war memorial within the Indira Gandhi Musical Fountain park had met stiff resistance. The Krishna Apartment Owners' Association filed a public interest litigation against the construction in the high court. On June 4, the high court gave the work a green signal. After that, the petitioners filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court, where the matter was to be heard next on July 26.