All eyes on urban minister as Kolkata asks for longer park hours

KOLKATA: On Monday, January 24, public parks reopened with limited visiting hours, which means they are closed to the public for the most of the day. Many Kolkata residents have demanded that parks, which were closed earlier this month due to a new wave of the COVID-19 cases, be reopened for longer hours, ideally all day. They stated that since malls and restaurants can stay open until late in the afternoon and evening, there is no reason to keep parks closed for most of the day.

They believe that keeping the parks open for extended periods of time would alleviate crowding. After a 20-day hiatus, parks throughout Kolkata reopened their doors to visitors on Monday. Firhad Hakim, Mayor, Government of Kolkata told The Telegraph that he had petitioned the state authorities to allow parks to remain open all day. Prior to the COVID-19 epidemic, most parks were open from 6 AM until 9:30 PM. “I’ve spoken to the administration about keeping parks open for extended hours, perhaps like they were before the outbreak,” Hakim remarked.

He claimed that the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) could only keep the parks open if the government agreed. Rawdon Square, Deshbandhu Park, Deshapriya Park, and Minto Park are among the 700 parks managed by the KMC. The parks will be open from 6AM to 9 AM on Monday, then again from 4 PM to 6 PM on Tuesday. 

The restricted hours make no sense to many people of Kolkata. “Parks should ideally be open from dawn to dusk. Longer hours would imply that people would not try to arrive at the same time, which would be good in the event of a pandemic. Many senior people prefer to attend parks in the afternoon, when the premises are normally less congested than in the morning,” remarked Joydeep Phukan, a resident of Dover Road in Ballygunge, South Kolkata. Mudar Patherya, a resident of Sarat Chatterjee Avenue in south Kolkata near Rabindra Sarobar, shared a similar viewpoint.