RAWALPINDI, Oct 5: With the number of inhabitants of the cantonment areas growing rapidly, the recreational facilities in the garrison limits proved too short of public expectations during the long Eidul Fitr holidays.

Jinnah Park and Ayub Park – the only two parks in the cantonment area – were swarmed with the public during the holiday season. Both parks proved insufficient for families, particularly children, who want much more recreational facilities to take full advantage of school holidays despite the deteriorating law and order situation.

At both parks facilities have fallen too short to cope with the growing number of visitors.

The beauty of picturesque Ayub Park has been marred by growing number of construction work inside the park, leaving less space for healthy activities. Rising parking and entry fees are the major obstacles to get access to the limited recreational facilities.

Jinnah Park has become a ‘mint’ for the park management, which makes millions of rupees per month, but in contrast there is not a single dust bin anywhere around the vast parking lot, as a result of which people throw liter all around polluting environment of the park.

The parking fee and entry fee is meant for the development of the park; however, ever since the park came into being no development has taken place corresponding to the earnings.

The government allocates funds for development from taxpayers’ money, therefore, there no justification for putting additional burden on the visitors. Three major outlets – a cinema house, a fast food outlet and a restaurant – are the major source of earning for the management of the park.

Though it has been made compulsory for every vehicle to pay the entry fee, the general public faces discrimination. While military vehicles are exempted from all kind of entry fees, separate charges are levied on public and private vehicles.It is up to the fee collectors to charge Rs10 or Rs15 for even the smallest vehicle, and if any visitor asks for an explanation, he or she faces the rude behaviour of the collecting staff.

Not only that, inside the park, civilian visitor desiring to have access to park area has to further pay Rs5 per head as entry fee. Nobody has an answer for putting this heavy burden.

People pay direct and indirect taxes round the year, but do not get their rightful services.

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has taken notice of the heavy entry fee imposed on visitors to parks in the province and reduced the fee to Rs2. Visitors to Jinnah Park and Ayub Park expect administrations of the two parks to slash entry fees as per announcement of the Punjab government.

The Race Course Park on Peshawar Road is basically considered as a jogging track and has no fun for families or kids. The small roadside parks – Rumi Park and Sarwar Park – on The Mall also attracted people during Eid holidays, though they do not have many attractions.

While there is dearth of parks in the cantonment, the residents recently lost a park on The Mall. The Chaklala Cantonment Board (CCB) closed the ‘Children Park’ near the Army Hockey Stadium, saying that it would be reopened after renovation. However, CCB’s stand turned to be false promise and after renovation its gates were permanently closed to visitors.

Though the traffic police had made special arrangements for the smooth flow of traffic during Eid holidays, not sufficient arrangements were seen to handle traffic outside Jinnah Park and Ayub Park.

A few traffic wardens were seen struggling to cope with the situation, there was not even a single traffic police official outside the Ayub Park.

Though the U-turn adjacent to the park has been closed, motorcyclists created mess for the traffic. Public transport, particularly taxis, stopped right in the middle of the road on both sides of Jhelum Road putting lives of commuters and motorists at risk.