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MP Tewari, residents criticise razing of golf practice area in Sec 4
While demanding action from the UT administration, Tewari wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “This is the most incredibly insane thing to do
Anandpur Sahib MP Manish Tewari criticised the move of razing the golf practice area created by the resident welfare association (RWA) in a public park at city’s Sector 4 by the Chandigarh municipal corporation (MC).
While demanding action from the UT administration, Tewari wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “This is the most incredibly insane thing to do. It was a beautifully curated park. The irony is that I have never ever seen anyone playing Golf or much less even walking around it. It just looked good and the RWA of Sector 4 had done a phenomenal job. I request UT administrator Banwarilal Purohit to take action against those responsible for this monumental stupidity.”
Tewari said that he will also write a letter to the UT administrator on Friday.
As per information, a golf practice area has come up at a neighbourhood park in Sector 4, without any official permission from the civic body. Out of the total 1800 neighbourhood parks in the city, around 1000 have been handed over to RWAs for maintenance. Sector 4 park is also being maintained by the RWA where members had put golf course grass in the park. Though RWA members believe that they have not violated any norms from the memorandum of understanding with the civic body, the officers say that RWAs can only take care of flowers and grass.
After some residents of the sector sent a complaint to MC, an official notice was served to the association on October 9 to remove the golf practice area in two weeks to avoid action from the civic body.
Senior advocate ML Sarin, a member of the RWA said, “Just before the Covid-19 pandemic, the RWA members had decided to put grass in the garden so that the residents could play in the ground. We had spent ₹7 lakh on this grass which we got from Calcutta. Also the park is open to the public and we had never put any tickets for playing golf in the area. Why can people play cricket in the park but not Golf? Due to some officer’s arrogance, they dismantled the garden using bulldozers and without giving us some time. We have not violated any norm and hence we wrote a letter to UT administration and UT adviser on Thursday and demanded their intervention against MC.”
On the other hand, MC officials said that RWA had even hired some security guards to restrict people from entering that area.
When contacted, MC commissioner, Anindita Mitra said that they received complaints from local residents and required action has been taken after enquiry.
