JANUARY 19: It’s a bouncer by former mayor and present Shiv Sena MLA Vishaka Raut that has the youth and cricketing fraternity up in arms. The vast open expanses of the Shivaji Park grounds in the heavily congested heart of the city have traditionally been the nursery grounds for aspiring Tendulkars and Gavaskars. Raut's bid to procure a four feet wide extension on either side of the Aaji-Aazoba park for senior citizens in order to build a joggers' track, has evoked loud protests from the locals and cricket afficionados.Raut says, ``I had drawn up plans for this park six months ago. Pramod Navalkar (former Shiv sena minister) and I had inspected the Shivaji park grounds and found there were many encroachments. We felt a park for senior citizens would be most appropriate. Navalkar's Nana-Nani park at Girgaum has been a great sucess and I personally want this one to be even better, '' she says.She is firm on the need for a joggers' path saying that as Dadar is a congested locality there are no other places for senior citizens to take a walk in safe and peaceful conditions. ``The groups playing cricket have the central area of the park to play and if that is not enough let them search for other venues,'' she says. ``Moreover the track will only take up a small portion of the ground and cricket enthusiasts shouldn't grumble so much,'' she adds, claiming that the older generation is very keen on the idea.The park was developed after obtaining sanction from the BMC, state government and is in line with the CRZ regulations, Raut says.But the youth are strongly opposed to surrendering any of their hallowed ground. Girish Raut who led a group to the Municipal Commissioner says, ``Boys aspiring to be cricketers come from far distant suburbs to this ground. It has seen the likes of Sunil Gavaskar, Dileep Vengsarkar, Sachin Tendulkar, Vinod Kamble honing their skills here. Not an inch of this ground should be used for other purposes as the number of groups coming over for practise has increased with the years.''``It's the nursery for cricket,'' says Madhav Mantri, Sunil Gavaskar's maternal uncle. ``We have been protesting against the idea of that park for months as it was eating into the cricket ground,'' he adds.Municipal Commissioner, V Ranganthan, said that the proponents of the park have been asked to see if the park can be developed in the area alloted to it (which is about 3000 sqft ). ``We have asked them to see if they can avoid the 4 ft extension on either side of the park,'' he said.
