THE time is ripe for the people to launch a ‘Save Kasturchand Park’ campaign. For, if such a campaign gets delayed, the city may lose the wonderful open space of historic importance in the next some time. The city can only ill-afford to allow that to happen. For, once the iconic Kasturchand Park gets encroached upon officially by the Government, the city will lose a landmark that has been one of its signatures for well over a century. For, a proposal has already appeared in public domain about using a big part of the Kasturchand Park to effect a ‘correction’ that is needed to make some sense out of the Sadar flyover ending near the north-western corner of the historic ground.

 

As per that proposal, a sweeping extension is to be built across the western side of Kasturchand Park running close to the historic bandstand. In stark terms, this would mean losing a big part of the historic ground with heritage tag to a Government scheme just because somebody made a design-mistake in the Sadar flyover’s southern end near the Reserve Bank of India building. In still starker terms, this would mean allowing the Government to escape its guilt of initially and originally messing up with the design of the end part of the Sadar flyover. Is it, then, not the right time for the people of the city to start a campaign to save the iconic Kasturchand Park ? Already, the authorities have encroached upon the western edge of Kasturchand Park to build the MetroRail Station. And now is proposed another encroachment that would destroy the a big part of the historic Kasturchand Park.

 

It must be stated clearly that in the past few years, for reasons not known to the public of Nagpur, the authorities have been terribly indifferent to Kasturchand Park’s upkeep. ‘The Hitavada’ has published from time to time scores of pictures of how the great ground fell on bad days -- with wild outgrowth all over the place. So serious did the problem become at one time that the honourable High Court at Nagpur had formed a committee to monitor the condition of Kasturchand Park. Despite that, the ground kept suffering from terrible official indifference -- which the people of Nagpur cannot ever forget. Kasturchand Park is one place that has hosted public meetings of Prime Ministers and national leaders. Most such meetings were attended by countless thousands of people. The park also hosted fairs and activities such as ‘Ravan Dahan’ for decades without any trouble.

 

Then came a sudden waking up of people at different levels, and all those activities were stopped. Why? -- the people wondered. Because Kasturchand Park is a heritage place -- said those who mattered. (Factually, the public meetings of great leaders, fairs and religious festivities such as ‘Ravan Dahan’ or Dussera should have been permissible since those were only temporary and traditional activities. Those activities did not do any major damage to the heritage status of Kasturchand Park. Yet, those were stopped for some time.

 

Later, however, some of those activities were permitted again.) NOW has come the proposal to allow an official encroachment of Kasturchand Park -- just because some jokers in power pyramid felt like indulging in throwing out of the window the heritage tag ! So, their -- the jokers’ -- whim is of greater importance than the heritage concern !!! And what kind of encroachment is this going to be ? It would be made of cement and steel needing crores of rupees of our money. That monster of a structure would become an eternal eyesore for the city for ages ! And that is now being officially planned! Bah ! And can the authorities guarantee that the so-called ‘correction’ would solve the problem? Can they guarantee that the new structure would not create another set of problems? How should a city and its people react to such an excess ? That is the quintessence of issue ! Hence a need to launch a ‘Save Kasturchand Park’ campaign ! n