Sarthak Kanjilall & John Wilbert
Port Blair, Feb 05: It seems that the most visited and attractive spot of Port Blair city, the Rajiv Gandhi Park is not receiving required care from the authorities for a very long time following which the condition of the walkway is in such a dilapidated condition that it may cause accidents.
Many segments of the walkway don’t have a railing and the ones which are still standing are rusted. Many walkway lights are also not working and some are instead missing.
The playground for kids inside Rajiv Gandhi Park has slides, which are totally broken and nothing has been done to repair those yet. Everyday dozens of children, including toddlers visit the play area and such broken slides, might cause serious accident anytime.
This shows tremendous negligence from the part of the Andaman Public Works Department and Tourism Department, which are the maintaining authority of the park. Hope, the authorities will make the park safe for visitors at the earliest before any untoward incident takes place.
When Andaman Sheekha contacted Executive Engineer, North Division, APWD, K Devaraju, he said that there is a railing of 1000 meter inside Rajiv Gandhi Park and for the first phase the Tourism Department has sanctioned Rs 39,00,520 for 256 meters railing work for which the work is on and is nearing completion.
The Executive Engineer further said that for the remaining 750 meters railing works, for which the estimated cost is Rs 1,39,18,921, the amount is yet to be sanctioned by the Tourism Department. “We are yet to receive a hard copy of work order,” said Er Devraju.
Regarding damaged slides at Children Park, he said the department doesn’t have have any knowledge about it but now after receiving information from Andaman Sheekha, he assured that the slides will be repaired immediately.
