Several sports coaching clubs inside Vivekananda Park, off Southern Avenue, have been renting out space to third parties for money.

The practice has been going on for years but the Kolkata Municipal Corporation wants that to stop now.

The civic body has put up boards at the gates of the park announcing that organising any activity in the park without the KMC’s nod is “strictly prohibited”.

A KMC official said government agencies who maintained the park were kept in the dark about clubs renting out space.

A senior member of one of the clubs, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said cricket tournaments have long been held in the park by renting out the grounds.

The activities of the coaching clubs have left very little free space in the park for other visitors.

The park is also a picture of neglect.

Vivekananda Park, spread across 12 acres, has been encroached on in multiple places. The encroachments have gone up over the years, said a regular visitor.

Sand and garbage in the park on Tuesday

Metro reported in June 2024 about the poor condition of the park. A visit to the park on Tuesday showed little change.

There is a narrow file of paved road cutting across the park that can be used for a stroll. Motorcycles enter the premises and are often parked on this road, making it difficult to walk. The road is broken and battered. The edges of the road have heaps of dried leaves, discarded tea cups and other waste.

One of the grounds, being used by Mainland Sambaran Cricket Academy, is not accessible to visitors.

In the rest of the park, the grass is worn out and walking or playing raises clouds of thick dust.

Vivekananda Park, one of Calcutta’s largest parks, was earlier in the custody of
the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA). The KMC took it over last year.

“We met representatives of all clubs recently. They were told to submit documents of the contract between them and the KMDA that mentioned the areas allotted to them. It seems many of the clubs are occupying more than the space allotted to them,” said Saurav Basu, the councillor of Ward 86, who also has an office on the park premises.

“It was an abandoned police outpost that has been transformed into the ward councillor’s office by the KMC,” said Basu.

Sambaran Banerjee, former captain of Bengal’s men cricket team, has been running Mainland Sambaran Cricket Academy at Vivekananda Park since 2002.

A cluster of homes on the periphery of the park. A KMC official described the structures as encroachment

Banerjee said: “I have been allotted the entire ground and pay rent for each square foot of space. When I was allotted the ground, it resembled a waste dump. We worked hard to turn the ground into what it is today. My aim is to produce good cricketers. The ground will be destroyed if there is unrestricted access.”

Banerjee told Metro the KMC should allot one of the grounds in the park for football and leave the rest for the cricket coaching camps.

“This park has produced many cricketers. Former India cricketer Jhulan Goswami had practised here during her formative years,” he said.

A KMC official said the eight coaching clubs have submitted some documents and the KMC has asked for similar documents from the KMDA, too.

“We have plans to improve the park. We want to have walkways around its periphery so visitors can take a stroll in the park and sporting activities, too, can continue,” Basu said.

A KMC official said he feared the encroachments along the periphery would emerge as an obstacle to doing that. A cluster of small brick homes and a place to store bamboo poles are among the encroachments, the official said.