No taker for mayor146;s park scheme

Bhattacharya claims that he has approached city industrialists several times for adopting some parks and maintaining them. The industrialists, however, says the civic body has not made any concrete proposal about the issue.

According to an official of the Parks and Squares department of the KMC, there are 556 parks and squares in the city and some of them need immediate attention. 8220;We have several policies to renovate parks and squares but not a single project is working out. Some of our schemes have been badly hit by the recession,8221; he added.

Rajiv Singh, secretary general, Indian Chamber of Commerce ICC, said: 8220;The mayor informally told us about the project. But there was no clear proposal. We are not sure about important issues like cost of a project, branding process and the developmental plans.8221;

He added: 8220;We are not even sure that if we invest in the parks, then would we have some control over these or the KMC will gain the control.8221;

Some parks including Eliot Park and Mohar Kunja in the city are maintained by companies like Tata steel, Hindustan Glass, Adhunik Metals and Bengal Shelter.

8220;It is unfortunate that no Kolkata industrialist has come forward to maintain the parks. I have been asking the Bharat Chamber of Commerce BCC since long to develop the Park Circus Maidan. But nothing has yielded,8221; said Bhattacharya.

The BCC has a different take. 8220;We have tried to take up the Park Circus and hold several meetings with the government but nothing has materialised. We have many questions over the project, which are not yet been sorted out,8221; said P R Agarwala, president, BCC.