Spare People’s Park:

CADA premises is alternative for City Central Library, say citizens

Citizens request government to construct a modern library at Old Palace Office, that is present CADA office building, instead of constructing at the proposed People's Park.

MGP former President Chandraprakash has proposed CADA office as an alternative location for the City Central Library, Mysore and saving People's Park from total extinction. 'City Central Library is celebrating its Centenary and the proposed building is also a Heritage Building, Centrally located and most suitable for the City Central Library,' he stress.

'People’s Park is an important lung space in the centre of the city. Once a very large park, it has been losing its park area to tennis club, government school, horticulture office and other reasons as well. Coming up of suburban bus stand, several large luxury hotels and commercial complexes have resulted in very heavy vehicular traffic around the People’s Park.'

'Library should be centrally located and should have adequate space within the building to provide for not only book stacks, periodical displays but also facilities like modern digital network, hall to make paper presentations and Xerox. With using CADA building we can save large amount of money to be spent for constructing library at Park, lung space of park and even there will be no parking problem,' he adds.

If the government is genuinely interested in giving the city a centrally located City Central Library, it can get the ground floor of this building vacated by shifting some of these offices in CADA to the first floor. Thereafter, ground floor can be made available to the City Central Library by making minor modifications for public conveniences. Even assuming the government goes ahead by violating the Parks act, more than likely there is every chance it may get demolished later,' he warns.

Library in the People’s Park

In early eighties Mysore City Municipality [MCM] had taken a decision to locate City Central Library in the People’s Park. The very process and the technicalities of this decision have been under cloud of suspicion.

Thereafter, The Karnataka Parks, Play-Fields and Open Spaces (Preservation and Regulation) Act 1985, came into operation in1986 and the decision of the Mysore City Municipality also became legally questionable.

Construction of City Central Library in People’s Park is going to be a monumental mistake and also an environmental disaster. Such a step will be legally questionable. Also with ever increasing congestion in this part of city centre, as elaborated above, it would be futile to expect the users of library to venture to visit this library purely for the reading pleasure.

Readily Available Suitable Place

Right behind the City Palace and beside Sanskrit Pathshala, there exists erstwhile Palace Office building. It is a double storied building. It is located amidst a large open space. It is genuinely central location in the city. Since the city bus stand is located close by it is also easily accessible to a large number of citizens of the city from all the residential layouts, without any special effort.

At present the this huge building is being occupied by Department of Co-operative Societies, Office of MLA, horticultural department office, being Command Area Development Authority [CADA] and a few more government departments. Surely some of these departments might have outlived their utility and are there only because they were located there during their heydays.