The never-ending saga of Sadashivanagar park

BANGALORE: While the property prices soar in the affluent neighbourhood of Sadashivanagar, citizens willing to use a park in the locality have to bear the brunt of this progression.A long standing dispute continues in Sadashivanagar park, as an entry fee is collected by all users above the age of 12. While multiple officials, activists and others have tried to regulate the ‘practices’ being used by the Sadashivanagar Residents Welfare Association (SRWA), in collecting user charges, the problem continues, even with the intervention of the Bruhat Bangalore Mahangara Palike (BBMP) commissioner. Siddaiah, visited the park while on his mid-night rounds and sought to know this park was given the right to collect a fee. Though, he assured to look into the agreement between the civic body and the SRWA, the issue seems to have taken a back seat for the latter. “There are much better parks with much more amenities that do not charge a user fee, why should this park be any different?” he had questioned his officials. But despite the top bosses order, the BBMP has but ‘slept over the issue’ and the SRWA continues to charge a fee on the pretext of it being ‘maintenance charges’. The park, that has been adopted under the ‘Adopt-a-Park’ scheme by the SRWA, charges an entry at the park which is now fixed at Rs 4. Express had reported on May 5, 2010, about these irregularities and the fact that children above the age of three were being made to cough up a fee and since then, the only progressive move being that kids below 12 years old are not being charged for entry. Mallikarjun, a resident and a RTI activist, asserted that this act of charging flouted all rules issued by the BBMP and shared that the contract ended way back in 2009. He said, “I have written several letters to the concerned authorities regarding the same but they have not acted up on it.” A source from the horticulture department of the BBMP, on the condition of anonymity, informed City Express that the park was yet to come to under their control. He remarked, “Despite several attempts to bring the park under our control, nothing has happened so far. What one has to realise is that people in high posts such as the deputy mayor and the MLA have supported the SRWA. Nevertheless, we have written a letter to the commissioner about the same.”  The president of the Association, S Ramanathan as well as the secretary, Jagdish Chandra were unavailable for comments.