Deshbhakta Tarunram Phukan Park: A stink bomb!

The park has no uril inside, nor has it any provision for drinking water. What a visitor will do when he/she is thirsty? Where will he/she go to answer the call of ture?

These are some open questions that seek answers from those at the helm of affairs in the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC).

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, August 30: The upkeep of a park is by no means ‘walk in the park’! The Deshbhakta Tarunram Phukan Park at Bharalumukh in Guwahati makes a perfect example of the statement mentioned above. Due to lack of proper upkeep, the facility in the middle of Guwahati which often touted as the Gateway to the Northeast, is a real blot on the landscape bestriding the Brahmaputra.

The park was renovated by the Deshbhakta Tarunram Phukan Udyan Purnirman Committee and the Save Guwahati Build Guwahati (SGBG) with funds from the Guwahati Metropolitan  Development Authority (GMDA). The renovated park was reopened for visitors by Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on May 31, 2007 in the presence of the then Guwahati Development Department (GDD) Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.

Words fail one while describing the condition of the amusement park now. The park is no longer a place fit for evening stroll and amusement. The atmosphere there is full of disgusting dirt! Surrounded by unwanted bushy outgrowths, the air there is not fit to inhale. TRP Road that runs along the park is a veritable public uril near the park where public vehicles are parked. As though to cap it all, some dustbins are kept there. Veritable stink bombs! 

The park has no uril inside, nor has it any provision for drinking water. What a visitor will do when he/she is thirsty? Where will he/she go to answer the call of ture? These are some open questions that seek answers from those at the helm of affairs. 

Some visitors to the park were heard saying ‘the government thinks that its duty is over after opening a number of such parks in the city. It has all along been shrrugging of its responsibility of their upkeep. Minting money should never be the only aim of such facilities’.

Playing facilities for children are also very fewer in the park.