Hyderabad: Stench keeps scenic park off bounds for public

Despite having a well-developed park with good amenities spread over nine acres located in the backyard of Old City between MGBS and Salarjung Bridge, the Imlibun park is seldom visited by locals and people looking for recreation facilities. Blame it on the stink emanating from the garbage transfer station abutting the park.

Though the park is well-maintained with a five-acre green cover, long tracks for morning walkers, huge trees with cool shade and children playing area, gym components and even acupressure walkway, the malodorous smell encompassing the park scares away the visitors. Also, unfortunately, most of the playing and gym equipment are found damaged and even stolen.

No doubt, the people of the southern part of the city are open space-starved, but still the families prefer to visit parks located at far distances, once in a while, rather than visiting the nearby Imlibun park. The Imlibun garbage transfer station is one of the four in the city, where the zone's waste is dumped before being transferred to the main station.

According to the visitors, this could have been a boon for the densely populated and space-starved Old City. But one of the major factors that deters the visitors is the stink from the nearby garbage collection station. "The people find it inconvenient visiting the park due to the garbage transfer station a few meters away. What is the purpose of building a park with a dumping site next to it," wonders Shaik Azeem, a visitor?

He said he lives in Daulshifa and occasionally he visits the park with family for walking and spending evening hours, but sometimes he is forced to leave early due to the stinking smell emanating from the dumping yard.

It is believed that huge funds were spent on the development of the park, but due to the garbage station the visitors avoid it. Most of whom rather prefer to travel long distances and visit Lumbini, NTR and Sanjeevaiah parks. The GHMC came up with a park with greenery of more than 5 acres for facilitating recreational activities for the people of Old City.

"Of course! We have a park close to us, but what is the use," said Hyder Ali, a resident of Noor Khan Bazar.

Several organisations including morning walkers staged protests demanding that the civic authorities remove the garbage station from the area, but nothing has been done. "Every day we are forced to cope up with the smell and leave the park midway through our walking and recreation schedule. This is the only space in Old City with greenery," said R Manoj.

"During afternoon and evening hours the smell is not intense. But in morning hours, when there is less air pollution, the smell gets stronger and many hesitate to come here," said Prashanth, a visitor.

According to the park officials, hardly around 70 visitors visit the park daily.

The park lacks a parking facility for four-wheelers and even if the visitors think of parking nearby, they are discouraged by the parked garbage trucks. "Earlier before the pandemic, at least the walkers, yoga enthusiasts used to visit in morning hours but now the park remains deserted," said an official on condition of anonymity.