The playground at Laxmisagar area being used as marriage mandap. Telegraph pictures

Bhubaneswar, Dec. 13: All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. But the youngsters of Laxmisagar can’t play even if they want to.

Community centres and playgrounds in the area are being used for holding weddings, much to the chagrin of young boys and girls who are left with no space to play. The community centre at Laxmisagar BDA Colony (stage II) is a case in point, and at least four grounds in the area have been thus occupied.

Ashish Mohapatra, an advocate and local resident, said: “A community centre is under construction but nearby fields are booked for wedding programmes, hampering the physical activities of children living in nearby colonies. Apart from this, the wedding programmes held within the thickly populated housing area cause noise and solid waste pollution.”

The youths here play volleyball, badminton and children play cricket inside the small open space near the community centre, but weddings and dinner spreads on the ground make playing there impossible.

Senior citizen Amar Mohanty said: “Besides noise pollution and littering, using the open space as a temporary dumping ground by the civic body causes a lot of inconvenience.” “It is the responsibility of the urban local body to ensure that children, women or senior citizens do not suffer and have lots of open space for physical activities,” said city-based urban management expert Piyush Ranjan Rout.

Community centres and kalyan mandaps have different utility. While community centres should be used as children’s or citizens’ library, to host literary or intellectual discussions, stage short plays or for indoor games, kalyan mandaps are used for social gatherings such as weddings or thread ceremonies.

“The civic authorities should make an inventory of missing public spaces or playgrounds meant for children or the common man across the city. The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) should issue instructions to all marriage mandaps, kalyan mandaps and puja mandaps to ensure that they don’t use public land commercially and there should not be any restriction on land for public use,” Rout said.

Though local residents said the BMC authorities had promised to develop parks and recreational facilities in the open space at Laxmisagar, senior officials of the engineering department said there was no such proposal for the near future. However, caretaker of the community centre in Laxmisagar Srikant Swain said: “The open space was never designated for a playground. It was supposed to be used as parking area for vehicles near the community centre. We never restrict the local youth from playing on the ground if there is no social event.”

The community centre will be ready and launched for public use on January 1. “Once the community centre is inaugurated, there will be no problem for the local youths to play in the open space,” he said.

Local councillor Sridhar Jena of ward No. 40 said: “The open grounds in case of the community centre are being used, as the building is currently under construction. As there is scarcity of kalyan mandaps across the city, the open grounds and community centres are often being used to help local residents organise social events. The youth can use other locations as we cannot ignore social events.”