LUDHIANA: The King
George swimming pool in
Rakh Bagh — which has been lying in an utter state of neglect for the past four years — will see better days shortly, and if the claims of
MC officials are to be believed, by next year the pool will be opened for children. The pool will undergo renovation, and it will take at least one year to do the same. Earlier, the district administration was maintaining the pool, but now its maintenance has been handed over to MC.
At present, MC is running a swimming pool near Rakh Bagh, but it is quite big in size and it is risky for small children, especially those who come for practice of swimming for sports tournament. This
KG swimming pool was meant for children only. But for the past four years, it was closed due to its poor condition, and authorities were playing a blame game on each other. But now finally, the pool has been given to MC, and they will manage all expenses to be incurred on its annual maintenance and renovation as well.
The civic officials claimed they had prepared an estimate worth Rs 45 lakh for the maintenance of this swimming pool, but before that, technical approval and vetting of the estimates is required. Moreover, the proposal will also go in the
MC general house for approval, so all these formalities will take some time, and then tenders will be floated for renovation work. Notably, around two years ago, the Hero group had offered to maintain this pool, as they were already managing the Rakh Bagh, but it could not work out.
The executive engineer of MC’s Operation & Maintenance cell,
Nacchatar Singh confirmed the renovation work of the pool, and said they were ready with the estimates. He said they would float tenders once formalities were complete.