However, with only eight public swimming pools in the City, out of which two have been closed for ‘renovation’, Bangaloreans have to travel long distances for a swim.
Those who can afford the private pools opt for them but many in the middle class and lower middle class bracket have nowhere to go. The pools are also heavily crowded owing to the acute shortage of swimming pools. The Basavanagudi and Jayanagar pools are very well maintained and offer great facilities along with excellent coaching but they are still short of meeting the growing demands of the City. Metrolife asked people about their pool perils and what according to them is the best solution for it.
Sunaina S, a mother of two, says that as far as the condition of the pool is concerned, she has no issues. The only problem is the distance she needs to travel to get her kids to the summer camp.
“I stay in JP Nagar and have to come to Jayanagar as the facilities here are really good. JP Nagar has close to nine phases and there is not a single public pool close by other than the Jayanagar one. Hygiene-wise, the Jayanagar pool is really clean and my kids really like it. Their coaching programmes are really good and not that expensive and suits the middle-class budget perfectly.”
Vivek Jain, father of five-year-old Arhat, comes all the way from Bannerghatta Road to the Jayanagar pool. “There is a shortage of pools in new localities. A couple of my friends take their kids to private pools in NGV and HSR Layouts, but the pool sizes there are really small and the coaching is not as good as the Jayanagar pool. To top it all, it is an expensive affair.”
When asked if the public pools were overcrowded, Vinod Kumar, a father of three kids, says, “That is the case during summers. They have several batches but the place is still crowded.
The crowd only attributes to the fact that people really want to swim but there aren’t enough pools around.”
People have stopped going to some pools as they believe that the maintenance is not up to the mark.
Nidhi Ravishankar, a professional says, “As a young kid, I used to go to the Mahalakshmi Layout pool everyday and even learnt how to swim there. Now, however, I haven’t been there for a while because it isn’t maintained as well as it used to be before.”
The BBMP officials say that the maintenance of the public swimming pools has been given to private parties, which in most cases have borne great results.
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