The 72ft tall statue of Bapu at Gandhi Maidan is reeling from neglect after a grand opening to the public two years ago.
Plants and flowers around the statue have dried up but nobody is bothered to tend to them. Steps on the platform leading to the statue are damaged at a few places and nobody cares enough to set them right. Even worse, waste items - old newspapers, water bottles, ice cream cups - are strewn in the vicinity of the statue of a person who advocated cleanliness.
The iconic 72ft statue is facing the brunt of administrative negligence. Sources said the responsibility of security and maintenance of the statue has been assigned to a private firm but any security guard is seldom spotted in the area.
Gandhians in the city are upset with the neglect meted out to the statue of the Father of the Nation.
"The statue is a symbolic souvenir of Mahatma Gandhi's deep attachment with Bihar. It was inaugurated with much fanfare and its neglectthese days shows that the authorities concerned have left it in an abandoned state. If the plants around the statue have dried up, it means they were not being watered properly. Even if they dried up, fresh plants could have been potted in their place," said Razi Ahmad, a noted Gandhian of the city and secretary at Gandhi Sanghrahalaya.
Disappointed, he said lack of basic civic sense among the people was equally to be blamed for the nuisance. "If people are spitting and throwing waste near the statue, it shows the lack of basic civic sense among the visitors, besides lack of supervision by the authorities. It is a place to be treated with high regard but it's shameful that people are being so disrespectful," said Ahmad.
The Mahatma first visited Patna on April 10, 1917, and his last visit was six days before Independence.
Officials in the Patna district administration, the custodianof the Gandhi Maidan, claimed to take corrective action soon. "It is true that people throw waste around the Gandhi statue. We would ask the agencies concerned to ensure cleanliness and maintenance of the plants," said an official of additional district magistrate-rank.
