SANGAREDDY: The condition of Rajiv Park in the town, which is the district headquarters, has turned worse. Though the municipal council gets about Rs 8 lakh annual income in the form of taxes from the park, officials care a damn about its maintenance. They have not spent a single paisa on the development of the park in the last five years. In the past, whatever income the park generated was appropriated by some selfish individuals and no one questioned them.
Currently, though the income is going into municipal council’s coffers, it is not being used for park’s maintenance. The poor maintenance has led to an increase in the number of weeds and snakes in the park bui l t by former MLA T Jayaprakash Reddy from the funds allocated by the government. Many visitors to Sangareddy, which is about 60 km away from Hyderabad, visit the park as well along with their families. On an average, about 100 morning walkers use the park everyday and the number increases to 500, and sometimes to 1,000, on second Saturdays and Sundays.
The two water fountains in the park have not been working for the last one year. Ramesh, a visitor, said that families, especially children, were inconvenienced as the park had no drinking water facility. Though there is a shop that sells cold drinks in the vicinity, it remains closed most of the time, he said and rued that while neighbouring districts were conducting various programmes to attract visitors, the situation in Sangareddy was the opposite. “Officials here are completely ignoring tourism.
Had officials been made accountable and action taken against those who showed laxity, the situation could have been better,’’ he said. When Express contacted municipal commissioner Prasad Rao, he said he had visited Rajiv Park recently. He said the municipality gets Rs 6 to 8 lakh income a year from the park but that money was spent on other works in the town. He said they prepared proposals for development of the park entailing an expenditure of Rs 20 lakh. If the general body meeting approved it, the work would be started, he said and added that Rs 10 lakh would be spent on equipment for children, repairing the two water fountains and providing drinking water facility.