The lone entertainment park of Dhanbad -- Birsa Munda Park, opened its gates to the visitors on July 1, after a gap of 70 days. But all its amenities seem to be in a mess. All the rides including toy train, dragon train, vortex, caterpillar and dhum jhula have been non-operation since it reopened.

This apart, other facilities like swings, sea-saw and slide have also become defunct, thanks to the gross neglect by the custodian of the park -- Dhanbad Municipal Corporation.

The list doesn’t end here. About 25 staff of the park including the gardeners, ticket booking staff and jhula operators have not been paid their salary since the last three months. The park is also devoid of security guards as their service had been withdrawn during the lockdown period on the ground of fund crunch. As a consequence, gardeners, clerks and other staff including jhula operators were being used as security guards.

Notably the estimate for repairing some of the facilities, including the toy train, swing, slide, sea-saw and seats etc has been sent by the park management to DMC earlier this year (March); a reminder has also been sent recently, but they are yet to get any response.

When TT Online contacted Niwas Kumbhkar, park manager, he said, “We reopened the park on July 1. As of now the park is witnessing a daily footfall of around 200 persons, which is way lesser than (500) it used to get during the non-Covid time.”

“Yesterday, we also relaunched the laser fountain. We are hopeful of running it in the evening. But it again depends on the power supply as we can’t run it through a generator,” said Kumhkar. He added, “It too expensive to operate it using a power generator. It consumes 20 litres of diesel per hour.”

“Since no extra charges are taken from the visitors for the laser show viewing, it is unfeasible to operate the laser fountain through generators,” he said.

“We are in the process of restoring other facilities like the toy train, which has been lying defunct due to lack of battery. Swings, slides etc will also be repaired. An estimate has been sent in March followed by a reminder last week,” said Kumbhkar.

Asked about the non-functional caterpillar, dhum jhula, vortex and dragon train, Kumbhkar said, “These facilities are lying non-functional due to lack of manpower. Our ride operators are at present working as security workers. We have written about the same to DMC.”

Established in 2009 during the tenure of former Deputy Commissioner of Dhanbad Ajay Kumar Singh, the park is spread over 24 acres of land in Baramuri area about 6 kilometers from the district headquarters. It is equipped with several facilities for children as well as other visitors.