Kurukshetra welfare society shows the way, builds 'park with a conscience'

Tribune News Service

Nitish Sharma

Kurukshetra, September 18

From making compost to running a free nursery, and doing groundwater recharging, the Arjun Complex Welfare Society of Sector 7 in Kurukshetra is showing the way to other societies in the district. The welfare society has converted a municipal council’s park into the “park with a conscience” with the help of the community.

Has its own mobile application to educate people about plants, compost pit

The park has the facilities of an aerobic honeycomb compost pit for kitchen waste and horticulture waste, jet sprinkler, motion sensor solar lights, a rainwater harvesting system for groundwater recharge, and its own mobile application to educate people about plants and compost pit.

People themselves can maintain it

We have provided technical support to the Sector 7 society. Usually, people criticise the government and civic bodies for not maintaining the parks properly, but these can be maintained effectively with community participation. Dr Naresh Bhardwaja, Green earth, NGO

Vinod Singla, who has played an important role in the development of the park, said, “The park used to be in a poor condition, stray animals entered the park and it used to present a not so pleasant picture of the area. We wanted not only to maintain the park but also develop it as a model park. Around four years ago we started maintaining the park, motivated people to start doing waste segregation and use the compost pit in the park for the kitchen waste.”

Singla, who is also the technical director-cum-District Informatics Officer of the National Informatics Centre, Kurukshetra, said while developing the park we also paid attention on not spending a huge amount on buying products for the park as we didn’t want to put a financial burden on residents. So, we used waste materials and cheap alternatives. A spring door closer for the gate of the park was used to get the door closed automatically so that animals could be kept out of the park, cycle tube valves were used for sprinklers, and empty milk packets are being used to grow saplings for a free nursery.

A society member said earlier the society used to get around Rs 2,000 per month from the civic body for its maintenance while the remaining expenses used to be borne by the members but lately, the civic body was not providing the funds. “We are hopeful that the civic body will soon start releasing the fund as several works are yet to be executed”, a society member said.

The executive member of Green Earth, NGO, Dr Naresh Bhardwaj, said, “We have provided technical support to the society. Usually, people criticise the government and civic bodies for not maintaining the parks properly, but the parks can be maintained effectively with community participation. To resolve the issue of waterlogging in the society, drainage pipes were installed to divert the water toward the park. The water is used for groundwater recharging. The society members have developed a model park and the other people should also learn and replicate the same.”

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