Sanjeevaiah Park used to be like a patch of nature with an endless expanse of trees and a walking trail where lovers used to get lost. Not anymore. It is a concrete jungle with an occasional ornamental tree or trees planted in a line to fulfil tree-plantation goals. Satellite imagery over the past 15 years shows how the patch of green jutting into the Hussainsagar has vanished over the years.
Visitors to the park now see a long list of attractions there — butterfly park, rose garden, aromatic plant garden, bamboo garden, yacht club, maze, children’s science park, National Flag park, Damodaram Sanjeevaiah Memorial, rock garden, floral clock, cafeteria, and an outdoor gym.
The rose garden is reached through a raised concrete platform from where one can see hundreds of small rose plants. The butterfly park looks like a butterfly in satellite maps, but visitors just see a concrete maze dotted with colourful flowering plants.
Theme park soon
A new theme park called Thrill City is set to open in less than a month. “We are testing equipment and it will be thrown open to the public by April-May,” says a park official at the site. On one side of the theme park is the P.V. Narasimha Rao Ghat and on the other, is a locked facility called Wonderfun Park with abandoned play equipment.
The recent tender floated by the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority for a night bazaar between Sanjeevaiah Park and Buddha Bhavan will further change land use of the park and the lake. The bazaar envisages pedestrian boardwalk with illumination over a 1,300-metre stretch.
“(Abutting the shoreline of Hussain Sagar Lake, from Sanjeevaiah Park to Buddha Bhavan) comprising of WPC (wood plastic composite) material on steel beam (beam shall be raised from the shoreline duly meeting the existing contours of the surface ground level) with varying width from 2.5m to 5.5m… Part of the above said board walk (130 m) shall be developed with unbreakable glass/acrylic based material (sic),” is the condition of the tender document.
The board walk will also include “paved circulation area along the complete stretch of 1,300 metres and in the available balance width using granite stone including kerb”.
What all this construction activity will mean for the lake is anybody’s guess.
