Neglected parks in Campal, Miramar raise safety and maintenance concerns

Panaji: An eerie silence envelopes the many mini-parks dotted across Campal and Miramar. Created in the mid-2000s to provide the densely populated locality with ample recreational facilities, they are now riddled with overgrown weeds, lack of security, and poor lighting during night hours.Residents in the neighbourhood avoid using the parks citing security and maintenance issues. They say that these parks have become a safe haven for miscreants to litter, drink, and smoke.Rajesh Naik, a local, said that residents fear possible snake bites due to the overgrown weeds, which keep them away from the parks. “It is empty these days. Even though the garbage in the garden gets collected every day by the workers, the parks lack general maintenance,” said Naik.The condition is especially true of the park in St Mary’s Colony.Another local, Aasif Sheikh, said that the public works department and the Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) only point to one another when it comes to the upkeep of these parks. “We have made complaints from our end, but to no avail,” said Sheikh.“Two security guards were deployed in the garden to keep miscreants at bay, but they got manhandled by the same miscreants and drunkards who have taken over the park.

We don’t send our children into the gardens,” he said.Similar issues surfaced at the Caculo Colony Garden at Miramar. The garden is well-maintained, but residents state that the garden sees waste generated every day due to visitors regularly littering it. Girish Shetye, a Miramar resident, said, “People, especially kids, lack civic sense. They just come and smoke and drink and litter the place with cigarette packets and plastic glasses.”CCP commissioner Clen Madeira, however, said that the CCP is in the process of carrying out beautification works at these parks in consultation with the forest department, which will include the plantation of new trees as recommended by the department.