Having gone through a gruelling fortnight for II PU exam, Manjunath and his two classmates had come to the Mangaluru City Corporation’s swimming pool on Tuesday morning to unwind themselves. To their dismay, they were welcomed by a board saying that the pool is closed for maintenance for a month.
Mr. Manjunth, an avid swimmer, and his classmates had taken a break from swimming for several weeks. “We thought of resuming it. But we were disappointed to see the board.”
Similar was the feeling of B. Ramachandra, a resident of Urwa, who had brought his two children in the morning. “Now, I have to go in search of some private swimming pools,” he said. When told about a swimming pool at a hotel in Falnir, he said he could not afford it.
Many using the pool are disappointed over the one-month long closure during the summer, when more people come there.
What has surprised many is the advancing of the maintenance which is generally taken up every year in August.
According to corporation’s Executive Engineer Gururaj Maralihalli, more swimmers come to the pool now because of the scorching heat and the water would have to be changed once in two days. “Otherwise people complain about skin infections and smell. Normally, water is being changed once in a week or twice in a week as the number of swimmers will be less. In summer, about 6,000 litres is required to fill the pool. So the corporation decided to take the up maintenance now itself as water scarcity expected to recede in May in the wake of summer rain,” he said.
He said that the tiles of the pool floor would be replaced and it would be opened from May 1.
