Citizens mull over whether allowing parking will jeopardise children's safety

It is an additional burden on enforcement agencies to regulate and maintain the area: MLA

Public litigants put forward this request

The High Court Registrar directed the police to construct a parking facility inside Cubbon Park. “The high court’s building committee and the security committee in its meeting held on September 25 directed the horticulture department to take necessary steps to enable parking of vehicles of public litigants on one side of the road between Victoria statue to KSLTA/Road Cubbon Park and the honourable chief justice has also accorded his approval for the same (sic),” the Registrar wrote. 

 There has however been resistance to this proposal from multiple fronts. “In fact, the directorate of urban land transport had recommended to the government in 2020 that the park shall be closed for motorised traffic, besides banning parking of vehicles inside the lung space,” a Cubbon Park Conservation Committee member in an interaction with Times of India. “The proposed stretch has Bal Bhavan and the government museum flocked by hundreds of children daily. Allowing parking will jeopardise their safety and render the stretch vulnerable to accidents,” another member added. 

An MLA has now stated that the government was indeed planning on banning parking of vehicles inside the premises. “Once you open up the park for such practices, it will later become free for all kinds of activities, besides being an additional burden on enforcement agencies to regulate and maintain the area. Previously, both the high court and government had turned down construction activity there considering the requirement of a lung space for citizens at the centre of a bustling city,” the MLA said in an interaction with The Times of India.