Pathetic Parks: Parking lot disfigures Pink Plaza park in Amritsar
Charanjit Singh Teja
Amritsar, June 20
The park at Pink Plaza opposite Hathi Gate has turned into an illegal parking lot. The park was developed while work on the Pink Plaza Shopping Complex was going on but there are very few signs of the park still being there, such has been the disfiguring. Due to poor maintenance, the walls of the park collapsed and the space inside is now being used as a parking lot. The full grown trees and a side wall towards the Ravidas Temple are the only remaining signs of the park.
Pink Plaza market is one of the busiest wholesale markets where people from other cities visit to buy garments and other goods. Shopkeepers in the market claim that they do not have parking space nearby because of which the park is being used to station vehicles. An auto-rickshaw stand has also come up alongside the park. A water overhead tank and transformers of the Punjab Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) have been established inside the park. A large chunk of space inside the park has been occupied by government establishments.
“Initially, it was a park and trees grew inside. But traffic movement increased in the market in the last few years. There is no separate parking space in the market. So people started using the park for their vehicles. No one axed the trees but the ground is being used to park the vehicles,” said a trader.
It is not just the Pink Plaza park that has been subjected to unauthorised use, a Sulabh Shauchalaya has also come up in the green belt near the Pink Plaza market.
“The government develops parks for the public but water tanks, transformers, control panels and other infrastructure gradually come up in the same park. Most of the time, the purpose of developing the park get defeated,” said Ashok Kumar, a local resident.
Municipal Commissioner Sandeep Rishi said that it depends on the people living near the park as to how that they want to maintain it. “We spend funds to develop the park. The parks can be maintained only with the participation of public. We are ready to make our share. The residents of the area should come forward to make their contribution,” he said.
