Bark up the wrong tree

The dome in the Buddha smriti park is leaking

Magnificent. This is what Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama said about the Buddhists’ architectural showpiece while formally inaugurating the Buddha Smriti Park in Patna on May 27, 2010. But nearly one year down the line, the magnificent structure, which has been used to flaunt what Bihar stands for, has embarrassed the Nitish government as it’s making news for the wrong reasons.


After a heavy downpour this year, water started leaking through the faulty dome of the stupa. This forced the authorities in the park to keep buckets beneath so that wooden floors and relics brought from Sri Lanka, Japan, Thailand, Myanmar and South Korea were not damaged.

But the reputation of Chief Minister Nitish Kum­ar, cultivated assiduously, had already taken a beating. The Rs 110-crore project, which was very close to the chief minister’s heart, had drilled ‘holes’ in the ‘park of pride’. After all, the magnificent park had come on the ground where once the historic jail in Patna stood, where thousands of freedom fighters (before Independence) and JP movement activists (in mid-70s) were incarcerated.

The leakage in the dome left the government red-faced. The government started passing the buck game to save itself from the embarrassment. It found convenient to blame it on the contractor Parsvnath Developers Limited (PDL).

A meeting of the Buddha Smriti Park executive committee under the chairmanship of Patna Divisional Commissioner KP Ramaiah was hurriedly convened. The meet was attended by principal secretaries of the Tourism Department, Urban Development, Art & Culture, besides the managing director of the Tourism Development Corporation and the Commissioner, Patna Municipal Corporation. It was decided to ask the contractor of the park to resolve all the technical faults of the central stupa at the earliest.  

An architect, who did not wish to be identified, said that though the reasons for the leakage would be investigated, but prima facie it appeared that joints or bonding in the domes have not been done properly or material used was of poor quality. “Water-logging or a drain close to the structure could also cause leakage due to capillary action,” he added.

Sources said the shutter (wooden planks to support casting) and cloth ceiling have not been removed despite instructions from the engineers of  The Bihar Urban Infrastructure Development Corporation (BUIDCO),  the agency responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the shrine.

PDL officials, however, completely deny the charge. “There is neither design fault nor any fault from our side in execution. We have used good construction material in the structure. May be somewhere the joint was not filled properly,” said a PDL official overseeing the repair work.

This embarrassment comes close on the heels of a sapling planted by Dalai Lama being dried up in 2010 itself. It was no run-of-the-mill sapling. It was brought from the ‘original’ Mahabodhi banyan tree at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka and planted by the Dalai Lama at Patna’s Buddha Park to commemorate the 2500th year of Lord Buddha’s enlightenment.

As a damage-control exercise, Bhante Dinanand Bhikshu of the Mahabodhi Temple Management Committee, Bodh Gaya, was especially flown in with another sapling of the scared tree brought from Anuradhapura, who eventually planted it in November 2010 in the 22-acre Buddha Smriti Park.

The moot question being asked today is: Is this park jinxed?

“Too many cooks have spoilt the broth,” said a senior officer associated with the project. “Too many agencies have been roped in for different tasks. While the Bihar Urban Infrastructure Development Corporation is responsible for the infrastructure side of the project, the park is to be maintained by the Tourism Department,” said the official.

“Similarly, while the museum inside the park will be looked after by the Art and Culture Department, the vehicular parking will be taken care of by the
Bihar Rajya Pul Nirman Nigam. Maintaining the holy Bodhi tree (the sapling) is the responsibility of the Forest and Environment Department, while security is the joint responsibility of the Tourism Department and the police,” he added.

The blame game will go on as the PDL, who were assigned the work in May 2009, could not complete the project within the stipulated timeframe of 350 days. The contractor, however, says that it stopped work due to non-payment of outstanding dues.

“The PDL has been paid ~88.99 crore of the ~101 crore project cost,” averred an BUIDCO official.  Whatever may be the case, it’s the local tourists as well as Buddhists from abroad who are deriding the way things work here, and wondering: Was this supposed to be Bihar’s pride?