A fair under way at the Assam Engineering Institute playground. Picture by Biju Boro

June 15: The residents of east Guwahati today joined the city’s sports fraternity in its demand to reserve the Assam Engineering Institute playground exclusively for sporting events .

The Judges Field Protection Committee also threw its weight behind the fraternity and threatened to launch an agitation if the government failed to ban public meetings and sundry fairs on the field.

“We want the government to declare the Assam Engineering Institute playground at Chandmari a public field because the people of the area in general and sportsmen in particular are suffering from a lack of open space and grounds for practice,” former deputy mayor Balendra Bharali said.

The Judges Field Protection Committee was formed at a meeting held in the city on June 11, general secretary of the committee Jatindra Narayan Bhattacharya said.

The meeting was attended by eminent citizens, sportsmen and sports organisers, including executive president of Guwahati Town Club Radha Bora.

Bharali said the Assam Engineering Institute playground was fast becoming a venue for fairs, robbing sportspersons of a ground.

“This field was earlier a low-lying one, which became flooded even after a mild shower. Under the initiative of then general administration minister, Biraj Kumar Sarma and the residents of Chandmari, the field was developed at an approximate cost of Rs 30 lakh in 1997-98. Now that the Assam Engineering Institute authorities have begun allowing fairs and exhibitions to be held on the field to earn revenue, it is no longer available to the locals for sporting purposes,” Bharali said, adding that this had triggered resentment among the local population.

Bharali said after developing the field, a committee was formed with the deputy commissioner of Kamrup, office-bearers of the Pub Guwahati Bihu Sanmilani, the Assam Engineering Institute principal and others as members.

The committee, too, had the authority to give permission to parties to use the ground.

After a dispute between the institute management and district administration over the ground in 2001, the court intervened and declared the Assam Engineering Institute the sole custodian of the field.

Since then, the institute has reserved the right to decide who will be allowed to use the field.

Sources in the institute management said that while granting permission they took enough care to ensure that the party using the field did not damage it. They said they had denied permission to a circus and a theatre troupe since the latter would have to dig up the field to prepare the stage.

The institute authorities said they always accorded priority to sporting events and allowed fairs and exhibitions to be held only if the field was free.

They alleged that without adequate funds from the government for the maintenance of the institute, the playground was their only source of revenue.

The authorities maintained that they even allowed other educational institutes and local clubs to practice and organise sporting events at the ground free of cost.