Coimbatore: Indoor badminton court on reserved site pulled down

COIMBATORE: The city corporation on Saturday removed an indoor badminton court constructed on an open space reservation (OSR) land at GKD Nagar.
The space was reserved for a park and a shop, corporation officials said. The facility was also charging the users.
Corporation town planning officer Ravichandran told TOI that they removed 50% of the structure housing the court. “We will remove the entire structure in another day,” he said. “We faced no resistance from the residents, who were informed of the decision two to three days ago.”
The court was built by the resident welfare association of GKD Nagar on the park site a year ago. The association collected money from the people, who used it, on a monthly basis. That was when petitioner C K Varadarajan appealed to the Coimbatore corporation that the 36,272 sqft land marked for a park and 3,720 sqft marked for a shop, should only be used for that purpose.
The civic body issued the residents a notice on June 1, but no action was taken. It prompted Varadarajan to write to the Prime Minister’s cell, which in turn, directed the petition to the state chief secretary. That seems to have prompted the corporation to take the decision to demolish the structure.
Though the association defended building the structure, stating that it was built for public use, the petitioner said a park that has green cover would make it more useful for senior citizens and children.