BuiltT in 1987,Nehru Planetarium situated at Rose garden was once the favourite destination of city kids to know about stars and planets. However,with the passage of time,the planetarium is gathering dust and crying for help. Now only some schoolchildren on weekends are brought here on educational trips. Despite claims of the Ludhiana Municipal Corporation that a whopping Rs 46 lakh has been spent on its renovation and maintenance in 2012,the condition of the planetarium tells a different story. While the brand new glasses installed by the MC have all cracked within less than a year,the walls have too started developing cracks. Despite the approval of the Finance and Contract Committee for placing new water coolers inside the planetarium premises,not even one has been installed so far. More than 18 glasses have cracked. The marble floor,despite the clearance from MC and work given to a contractor,has not been polished yet. Even the lights are not of the quality which the committee actually approved, said a source from MC Zone D. However,when Mayor Harcharan Singh Gohalwaria came to know about the discrepancies in renovation,he ordered MC commissioner R K Verma to submit a report on quality of material used within seven days around a month back,but the report has not been submitted to date. The quality of the glasses used was so bad that they cracked as temperature rose, said the source. When contacted,the Mayor said,I have not yet got the report and I really dont know why it has been delayed. However,tomorrow I am going to visit the place personally and also look why the report has been delayed. The MCs callous attitude towards childrens tourism attractions can be gauged from the fact that a toy train has not been functioning for the past more than eight years in Rakh Bagh and even the Rose Garden now does not have much animals as it used to have earlier in the zoo.
