CUTTACK: Even as the city's first swimming pool at Chandan Pokhari in Choudhury Bazaar has remained shut for the last 28 years, complete negligence of the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) in ensuring proper safeguards for prohibiting use of the water body has resulted in totally preventable deaths.
In the last three years five have died after drowning in the pool as it has been left unguarded and without walls or barricades.
As recent as June 30, a 17-year-old boy drowned in the pool. Last year, body of a teenaged boy of Jaunliapati locality in the city was recovered from the pool. Prior to that, another two children of Matha Sahi had drowned.
Located close to CMC office, the pool was built under the aegis of then CMC Chairman Trilochan Kanungo and inaugurated by then Chief Minister Biju Patnaik on August 31, 1994. After inauguration, the pool was used for few months. But was later shut down by the civic body the same year. It has remained closed till date.
According to locals, many children visit the children's park located adjacent to the abandoned swimming pool, which has no security. Some of the children who sneak into the pool compound either to feed fishes or take a selfie and sometimes slip into the deep water and drown. Despite several attempts, the CMC Commissioner Nikhil Pavan Kalyan could not be reached for a comment on the issue.