An NGO has written to mayor Firhad Hakim and mayoral council member in charge of Kolkata’s parks Debashis Kumar, urging them to keep the city’s parks open for longer hours.
The Telegraph had reported on Monday that many Kolkatans found no logic behind keeping the parks closed for so many hours every day.
Many parks in the city remain open for only eight or nine hours. Most parks remain closed between 10am and 4pm, denying the opportunity to many to use these parks.
“Park timings are still restricted, despite several announcements by the KMC that they will be open all day. We feel that everyone in the city needs a place for fresh air...,” the letter emailed by People United for Better Living in Calcutta (PUBLIC) read.
Kumar said on Tuesday evening that the civic body would throw open 100 parks between early morning and late evening, without any break.
“We will start keeping parks open between 5am or 6am and 8pm or later. We will issue an order within 7 days,” Kumar told The Telegraph.
Earlier in the day, the PUBLIC had sent the email to Kumar also.
Bonani Kakkar, one of the founders of PUBLIC, told The Telegraph that there was no logic behind keeping parks closed for many hours during the late morning and afternoon.
“We have raised this issue with the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) again and again...,” Kakkar said.
Rabindra Sarobar and Subhas Sarobar, two of Kolkata’s largest parks, remain open between 5am and 10am, and again between 4pm and 7pm. The two parks used to remain open between 5am and 8.30pm before Covid. Though everything has opened, the authorities never went back to the pre-Covid hours.
Several other parks have been following a schedule for many years under which they remain closed between 10am and 4pm, and shut down at 7pm.
An urban designer said parks were places where people walk, jog, exercise. They are spaces where people can sit or two people can chat, he said.
Subrata Kumar Pal, the head of architecture, town and regional planning department at Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST), Shibpur, Howrah felt that the authorities can do a study of the surroundings of a park and keep them open accordingly.
“If it is found that people come and sit in a park during lunch break in an area with many offices or if parents waiting to pick up their children from schools wait in a park, a decision to keep these parks open without any afternoon break should be taken,” said Pal.