Gyms at community centres closed for yrs

Sandeep Rana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 1

Gyms at community centres here have been lying closed for the past two to five years.

With no policy or planning to run such gyms, a majority of these never opened after inauguration. Some gyms at community centres in Sector 22, Sector 49 and Mahila Bhavan, Sector 38, remained open for some time. These gyms also closed in no time due to non-payment of fee to trainers. Another hurdle that these gyms have been facing is that the Municipal Corporation has no policy to appoint a gym trainer.

“There are 46 community centres in the city and about 50 per cent of the centres have gym facilities. All modern community centres already had gyms. Later, gyms were added to old centres also. With no one to look after the gyms, several machines are in need of maintenance,” said a senior MC official privy to the development.

“Youths in our area were happy that there is a gym in the locality. However, it was closed after sometime. Officials said machines are getting damaged as there is no one to look after them. There is also no trainer,” said a youth.

An agenda to run gyms on a PPP mode was to be taken up in the recent House meeting. However, it could not be done.

Councillor Maheshinder Singh Sidhu, who was also a member of the revenue generation committee, said: “Hopefully this agenda will be taken up in the next House meeting. If we outsource the gyms, then only we can run these properly.”

However councillor Shakti Prakash Devshali said: “First of all, the MC needs to come out with a policy to hire a fitness trainer. Then only we will be able to run gyms”.

Chandigarh Aam Aadmi Party president Prem Garg said: “It is a sheer wastage of public money. They should have framed a policy first, then opened the gyms.”

As per engineering wing officials, the budget of small gyms ranged between Rs7 lakh and Rs8 lakh each, while bigger ones cost between Rs22 lakh and Rs23 lakh each to the corporation.

MC has no policy to appoint trainer

Some gyms at community centres in Sector 22, Sector 49 and Mahila Bhavan, Sector 38, remained open for some time. These gyms were also closed in no time due to non-payment of fee to trainers. Another hurdle that these gyms have been facing is that the Municipal Corporation has no policy to appoint a gym trainer.

Budget

As per engineering wing officials, the budget of small gyms ranged between Rs 7 lakh and Rs 8 lakh each, while bigger ones cost between Rs 22 lakh and Rs 23 lakh each to the corporation.