Denizens of Dehradun remaining vociferous in their demand for more and more parks in the city for their benefit, things look gloomy on the ground with the existing parks, albeit few in number, being reduced to garbage piles and others the parks are not meant for. Besides, to the embarrassment of the elderly, some youths , seemingly lovers, are being found in too close an embrace all through the day. These parks are turning into the haven for political and other activists doing sit-ins almost regularly. Add to this the menace of unauthorised parking and the mess, involving public parks, is perhaps complete. These are a few of the problems the premier park of Dehradun known as Gandhi Park has been facing for long with any redress seemingly a far-off dream.
Though Dehradun Municipal Corporation seems to be engaged in keeping things clean and in order for those whom the park is meant and the tourists who swarm in their hordes with the season on, are doing everything they ought not to do to reduce things to the original mess.
For instance, they are nullifying the good effects without the least scruples of the things which the painters and sweepers under the payroll of the corporation are doing by way of cleaning the sprawling park and beautifying it. “It is indeed a sad spectacle to see the civic body workers taking pains to paint the benches and the sweepers cleaning the pathways and collecting the litter and a section of the visitors lose no time in bringing things back to the square one,” said one of the regular visitors hailing from Dilaram Chowk.
Another such visitor, an elderly one, said the young couples sitting there for hours on end in a state of close embrace and doing things they ought not to do in such public places is what is making many of them steering clear of the only worthwhile public park of the city.
“If this is embarrassing for the elderly this is bad for the kids too,” he said.
Mehesho, a sweeper who sweeps clean the park twice daily says many of the visitors seem to be least bothered about the cleanliness of things. “They throw waste hither and thither, caring a damn for the immense pains we take twice a day for an awfully paltry sum we get from the corporation. We feel sad over the nonchalance of the people for a public property,” she added.