After 4 long years, pool work on

Closed for years, the swimming pool in 3rd Block is finally being rebuilt. But the November deadline has passed, and the authorities now say work will be completed only by March next year. That’s four months from now

The Jayanagar swimming pool, closed for more than four years, will be ready for use by March or April next year, officials connected with the project say.

Metrolife visited the pool, adjacent to the Kittur Rani Chennamma Stadium in 3rd Block, Jayanagar, and found workers busy digging.

On September 22, Metrolife had published a report about PM Swimming Pool being shut for four years, with no people’s representative taking responsibility for the delay.

At the time, Sowmya Reddy, just then elected MLA for Jayanagar, said the work would be done within two months. Work has indeed begun, with about 50 men and women on the job, but the two-month deadline won’t be met.

“It has been only six months since I became an MLA and the swimming pool issue is something I have been tirelessly trying to fix. There wasn’t any funding till now which is why the work could not take place,” she said on Tuesday.

On November 21, Sowmya had put up a post on Facebook saying the contractor and the officials had been instructed to complete the work by February. That deadline is also ambitious, going by how much work is left on the ground.

The pool comes under the Byrasandra ward. Corporator N Nagaraj, BBMP Joint Commissioner Vishwanath, and Chief Engineer Prabhakaran were present on the day Sowmya inspected the pool.

About 50 to 60 workers are engaged in the construction now.

With the renovation, in addition to two bigger pools that are being rebuilt, a smaller one is coming up for children. The authorities claim it will be the first heated BBMP pool in the city.

When Metrolife began asking questions about the four-year delay, most people pointed fingers at corporator N Nagaraj, describing him was the stumbling block. He had no explanation for the delay, but said, “We want to make a good quality product which is why the work is taking some time. There wasn’t any work happening for four years; we just started it a year ago.”

That timeline is again not borne out by what Metrolife saw in September: no work was in progress then.

“Right now, the workers are concentrating on laying the concrete, fixing the pipelines and making a new pool for children. It’s going to be the best in the city,” Nagaraj said.

He said he had been inspecting the work once a week and would continue to do so till the work was completed.

No clarity on deadline

Corporator N Nagaraj, MLA Sowmya Reddy and the officials in charge of the project gave conflicting timelines about when work began and when it would be done. Clearly, they are not on the same page. An engineer said the work had been going on for four months, but Nagaraj claimed it had been in progress for a year.

In September, the premises was barred and locked. Sowmya expects the work to be done by February, the engineer said it would take till March, and corporator Nagaraj said it would be completed in February or March.