Pay through your nose to enter a playground. This is the scenario at a nearly 1.5-acre ‘playground’ in Rajarajeshwarinagar, where residents have been engaged in a bitter battle to take over their land that has been “encroached” upon by a cricket club.
For the past seven years, a sports club with seven nets and other facilities has occupied the entirety of the ground, leaving residents with no open area for play. “Nearly a decade ago, we formed an informal club, ‘Best Club Cricket Academy’ for cricket matches and such. The ground was open for all. Slowly, it became corporate, we were weaned out, and now, it has become an illegal club where no one else is allowed to play,” said Nanaiah P., a resident.
Residents in the area have been forming a collective, discussing legal options and staging protests to reclaim their ground. In the area where independent houses and apartments jostle for space, this outlet for sports comes at a heavy price. Membership is in the thousands of rupees for summer camps; while, for residents to enter, they have to pay a fee of up to ₹300 an hour to use the nets.
“This is a clear violation of public space for commercial activity. Documents show that it is a civic amenities site. Authorities have even surveyed the land. And yet, the club continues there without paying a single rupee,” said a resident.
On their part, officials from the cricket club said the land belongs to the BEML society, and they had “all the documents” to run an academy there.
However, Bangalore Development Authority, which developed the sites, is categorical that the site has been earmarked as a park. “We handed it over to the BBMP (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike) to develop the area. It cannot be used for commercial activities,” said Mohanlal, Assistant Executive Engineer, BDA.
The BBMP, however, said they were unaware of the issue. Thippeswamy, Joint Commissioner (R.R. Nagar), only said they would “look into it”.
This “encroachment” of the playground joins a long list of dangers to disappearing open spaces — an issue that is recurrent in the city.
The 2011 Census gives us a sense of the the meagre number of play areas left for citizens. A total of 390 were tabulated for 198 wards, with 46 wards — covering 173 sq. km — not having a single playground in them. The jostle of space seen on weekends in playgrounds is reflected in the statistics too: There is just 0.3 sq. m of playground space per citizen in the city. While the city’s population has breached the one-crore mark, the number of playgrounds has declined in the years since the Census was conducted.
Consequently, the angst against such encroachments has risen, with residents of Indiranagar and Jeevan Bima Nagar, among others, coming together to oppose indoor stadiums or cricket academies coming up on playgrounds.
Developing playground for a govt. school
Staff Reporter
Bengaluru
A group of citizens have tied up with an NGO to raise funds to develop a playground for a nearly 115-year-old government school on the outskirts of the city. The concept aims to solve two teething problems: lack of play areas as well as recycling tyres that usually end up in landfills.
The Doddahulluru Government School at Hoskote has more than 165 children but no playground. The NGO, Gudgudee, tied up with a city-based organisation, The Bake Collective, to raise funds for the play area that will have tyres as a base for the see-saw as well as a ‘tyre wall’.
While their target was to raise ₹90,000, online contributions and a ‘bake sale’ — where, homemade pastries and other desserts were sold on July 6 — saw an impressive ₹1.1 lakh being raised. “We can create additional play infrastructure with the money collected. We expect the work on this to start by July 24,” said Aditi Agarwal from Gudgudee. The NGO is raising funds for 50 playgrounds across the country, of which contributions for nearly 20 have come.
All eyes on High Court
Several residents of Jeevan Bima Nagar gathered at a 1.25-acre open space in the locality on Sunday, a day before their petition to save the area will be heard in the High Court of Karnataka.
Currently, a portion of the space is seeing construction of a community hall, while the rest has been earmarked by the local elected representatives for a playground and a cricket academy. “A previous court order had asked for status quo until the new Comprehensive Development Plan was prepared. But, the conversion of the green space for other activities has already started,” said M.S. Anand, president of the Residents Forum at LIC Colony.
With residents claiming that there has been violations in procedure in allotment of the open space, they have demanded the land be used for a park. They filed their petition in the court in January.
