Bhubaneswar, May 5: The development authority wants you to stretch your stroll in a park to a calorie-burning exercise with the addition of five open-air gyms in the city's green stretches. At present, there are 10 open-air gyms in the city.

The new parks to offer the facility are Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Park at Satsang Vihar, Gopabandhu Nagar Park at Unit VIII, Dharma Vihar Park at Jagamara, Phase VII Park at Sailashree Vihar and Judhisthira Das Park at IRC Village.

In 2015, the city got its first open-air gym at the Buddha Jayanti Park. The number of parks having such facilities was shortly increased to five and at the end of last year the count stood at 10.

"The open-air gyms in parks became a big hit because they provide an opportunity to all age groups to work out without paying any money. Working out in an open area adds to the experience," said mayor Ananta Narayan Jena.

The facility at these parks include fitness equipment such as air walker, sit-up bench, air swing, twister, set back or glider, push and pull up chairs, knee or hip raise on parallel bars, big shoulder wheel, bench with fixed dumbbells, bench with fixed weights to lift and poles with fixed weights.

"It is a great move of the administration to provide such a facility for the citizens here. We can now have our morning walks and work out at the open-air gyms. The open and natural environment does help a lot since we can exercise in the fresh air rather than doing the same inside a congested and smelly room of an indoor gym," said Jagamara resident Suresh Mahapatra, a government employee.

Besides, the 15 open-air gyms, the city administration has also planned to have one more such facility in Saheed Nagar by September this year. Sources said that of the three smart parks being planned in Saheed Nagar, one would have the open-air gym facility.

Sabyasachi Das, a physician and resident of Pokhariput, said the entire nation is virtually sitting on a diabetic bomb scare as the number of cases and stress related diseases are on the rise.

"If we go on exercising on daily basis, then we can actually delay or just get rid of any such lifestyle disease. The initiative of the administration to make people exercise has become a very well planned strategy to make the city liveable and smart," said Das.