M’luru: Residents Bat for Multi-purpose Playground at Bondel

- Media Release

Mangaluru, 02 May 2015: Thousands of residents along the City-Airport Road, stretching from Yeyyadi to Kavoor, here are batting for a multi-purpose playground on the 10-acre plot, set aside for sports, located in the Government Housing Colony at Bondel. They are agitated over the latest proposal to construct a cricket stadium. There are no sports, recreation and park facilities in the vast swathe of land from Kadri Park up to MCC’s north border at Gurpur River. The residents are alarmed at the prospect of a gated exclusive cricket stadium, shutting out all other forms of sports and games.
 
Local residents formed the Bondel Maidan Development Samiti, a few years ago for promoting a fast and proper development of the plot for multi-purpose sports and games. It has now been revived to oppose the proposed exclusive gated cricket stadium and to develop the ground for multi-purpose sports and recreational facilities. The Samiti has visualized and drawn up a tentative ground plan for multi-purpose use of the maidan.

In the unavoidable absence of Dr Ramachandra Rao, a popular family physician and honorary president of Samiti, John B Monteiro, working president and Padmanabha Ullal, secretary released the plan for using the ground for multi-purpose sports and recreation at a media meet at Mangalore Press Club on May 2.
 
In a media release issued on the occasion,  Dr Ramachandra said that in the context of the increasing menaces of diabetes and obesity and sedentary city life, doctors like him recommend long walks as there are no swimming pools and gyms within the physical reach and financial means of common people. Therefore, he said, they walk on the concreted Airport Road, which has no footpath and are exposed to the risk of being run over by the fast airport-bound traffic. He appealed to the concerned authorities to provide a safe walking track on the new ground and offer a setting for a variety of sports and recreation.
 
Veteran journalist and author John B Monteiro,  anchor of the Bondel Laughter Club, which functions daily on this maidan, said that the laughter club has had to shift from place to place as the open spaces in the area were encroached upon or de-notified in favor of builders. He said that the new ground plan provides for a Laughterdome for a hundred participants to have their sessions even in the monsoons.

Monteiro said the credit for bringing the 10-acre plot to its current status of a coveted property, valued at Rs 200 crores, goes to Padmanabha Ullal, a retired MCC executive and now a social activist.

 

 
Speaking at the media meet, Ullal explained how he identified the undeveloped hilly land and had it leveled by persuading land-fillers to extract and carry away thousands of lorry-loads of excavated earth. He also persuaded the Kudremukh Iron Ore Company to deploy its giant heavy earthmovers free so as to bring the ground to usable level. Ullal had also represented to various concerned authorities and has had experience of being tossed around from pillar to post by politicians in power across party lines and officials down from secretaries in charge of the district and DCs. He had identified and secured consent for releasing impressive Central funds subject to making state-level approach for the funds – with no action taken to secure the eligible and offered funds.
 
Speaking at the media conference, Hemacharya, president of Daijiworld Residency Association, opposite Bondel Church, said, ‘Apart from the multi-purpose uses already mentioned, half a dozen schools in the area have no proper playground and this handicaps students, about 5,000, from practicing and playing for competitive sports. The schools have offered to participate in the protest against exclusive cricket stadium and the next phase of the struggle would be mass tree plantation by students during the coming monsoon.’
 
Hemacharya further said: ‘Ullal spoke about being tossed about from pillar to post by netas and babus in power. After this press meet, he would be pulled up for going to the media. Recently there was a case of a handicapped man importing a Rs 10 lac sophisticated wheel chair that can climb stairs. The customs in Bangalore slapped a duty of Rs 4 lac and stiff storage charges. Finally, English daily published a front-page story on it. The customs in Bangalore got in touch with the importer and offered to deliver the wheel chair to his home free of any charges - and it reached him the next day without having to pay a paisa. But, the customs chief asked the handicapped man: ‘Why did you have to go to the media?’ People play games – as in this maidan case.’
 
Summing up, Monteiro said, ‘Now that this valuable public asset is being gifted to a non-state entity for a gated cricket stadium, the public should wake up to support the struggle of the Samiti to retain the ground for the use of the local residents. I appeal to the ministers and MLAs from the district to restore the ground for wider use by residents starved of playgrounds, gardens and parks. I also request the media to support our popular cause.’