Beedanagudde Ground is official venue for govt programmes

The newly-inaugurated Mahatma Gandhi Open Air Auditorium at Beedanagudde Ground has come up at a cost of Rs 98 lakh.

City Municipal Council Commissioner Manjunathayya said the building has all basic infrastructure facilities and Beedanagudde Ground will be the official ground for all government programmes henceforth, he added.

He said the ground is spread over 5.5 acres of land and it has one acre extra land outside to park vehicles. Five toilets and four washrooms have been constructed separately for men and women. The funds for the work were released by the urban development authority, he said.

Manjunathayya said plans will be chalked out to provide facilities for sports and a park. The ground is levelled with the assistance of 60 labourers by Nirmiti Kendra, he stated.

He said the ground can accommodate 3000 people at a time and it has been named after the Father of the Nation. Facilities will be provided for  tennis ball cricket matches. A committee, set up by the deputy commissioner, will fix the fee to allow private parties to hold programmes at the venue.

Parking lot will be constructed using the funds available under the 14th Finance Commission. “There is no corpus fund for the maintenance of the ground. The responsibility of the maintenance of the ground is with the City Municipal Council. Two persons have been deployed for security,” he explained.

“The ground will get water connection shortly. Earlier, 900 unauthorised houses had come up on the ground. It was a slum and the house owners were warned and about 400 houses were vacated. The other owners had been told to vacate the place by three months. If they fail to vacate the area by another 15 days, the City Municipal Council will take immediate action to evict them,” he added.

Manjunathayya said a club for officers will be constructed in the adjacent area after the removal of unauthorised dwellings.