Extra fencing irks MNK Park visitors

Some Bengalureans have slammed the ‘unnecessary’ upgrade of MN Krishna Rao Park on social media. The Basavanagudi park is at least 80 years old

Long-time visitors of MN Krishna Rao Park in Basavanagudi are upset over the recent spate of construction by BBMP on the premises. The park is at least 80 years old.

They find the addition of railings around green patches, and grilles around the children’s playground unnecessary. There already exists a compound fencing outside. “It feels like a ‘tree zoo’,” Basavanagudi resident Mansoor Ali rues about the diminishing open spaces in the city.

Spanning 25 acres, the MNK Park, as it is called for short, is a popular lung space in south Bengaluru. Sir MN Krishna Rao, the dewan of the Mysore princely state in 1941, had laid the foundation stone of the park. Reports say it was designed as an exclusive park for women and children.

‘Need unstructured spaces’

Science communicator Palahalli Vishwanath is 80 years old. He has been visiting the park for 70 years. “It has undergone many changes but this was unnecessary,” he says.

Early this month, he posted ‘then and now’ photos of a walkway in the park on Facebook and wrote that one now feels “fenced in” while walking. He not only deems it “ugly” but says “excessive use of metal will heat up” the surroundings. Other parks in the city are being cordoned off similarly, people said in response to his post.

About 10 days ago, environment activist Leo Saldanha tweeted that the “crass steel” fencing ruins the “inclusive, ever welcoming, unstructured beauty” of the park.

“Earlier one felt calm and healed after coming out of the walk... Now one is expected to do a march-past along the walkway and leave,” he laments the makeover of the park, which, at a distance of 8 km, is the closest park to his home.

Leo believes parks should be unstructured spaces and counts New York’s Central Park, and Lodhi Gardens in New Delhi as good examples of parks without borders.

He also notes that cement benches are “elevated” for wheelchair-using people to access, and concrete pavements hinder the natural drainage of rainwater.

“What will happen to (the movement of) snakes?” Mansoor, who is an architect, questions the concretisation of natural spaces.

He grew up playing in the park, sitting in the lawns and picking fallen leaves, but his “daughter can’t do any of it” because of the new barriers. He feels thorny bushes or hedge plants would have been a more aesthetic alternative.

Even adults like Jeenal Lalan, a homemaker who brings her young daughter to the park frequently, misses the cool touch of the grass. “We can only look at the grass from a distance,” she sighs. “If children try crossing over the spiky grille, they may get hurt. They should have thought of bamboo barriers,” she adds.

Basavaraj, executive committee member of the park’s walkers association, claims the BBMP did not listen to their concerns.

‘Good for elderly’

Not everybody is objecting. Divya Poonam, a homemaker who comes to the park after dropping her child at a tuition centre nearby, says the steel railing provides support to the elderly to walk.

The concrete or fencing structures don’t block the walking tracks, so Sheshadri Rangan, a 64-year-old Gandhi Bazaar resident, doesn’t see them as a problem. Another walker feels it is a good step towards protecting the greenery from “careless” humans.

‘Developed 40-45 parks in south Bengaluru’

A BBMP officer overseeing construction inside the MNK Park said it is among the 40-45 parks in south Bengaluru they have been “developing” for six-seven months. “The work will complete in a week. The last major construction at MNK Park was done over 20 years ago,” he informed. “People pluck flowers and walk on lawns and damage the grass,” he explained the need for extra fencing.