The army on Tuesday indicated that it was taking a softer line on the issue of charging an entry fee from visitors to Eden Gardens. The forest department had closed down the garden last Tuesday after the army objected to its collecting Rs 2 as entry fees.

In a meeting with forest department officers to resolve the impasse over the issue, army officers asked the department to submit in writing their objections to free entry to the park.

Forest minister Jogesh Burman told Metro in the Assembly lobby on Tuesday that during the meeting with army officers, the forest department categorically told them that it was debarred from reopening the park if not allowed to collect entry fees.

?The army officers asked our men to submit in writing the forest department?s opinion. This will be done soon. We expect the park to reopen within a day or two,? Burman said.

?We told the army that if free entry is allowed, the garden will turn into a crime haven and become unkempt,? an official of the urban and recreational forestry wing said.

The department has also made it clear that it will not open the park unless the army allows it to charge an entry fee.

Forest officers will submit their opinion in writing to the army on Wednesday, informed sources said.

Army officers, including Colonel Malook Singh, colonel quartermaster (HQ), Bengal Area, reportedly, promised to reconsider the matter after receiving a formal letter from the forest department.

The forest department closed the park on March 22 after army officers objected to the entry fee.

A day before that, the army pulled down a cafeteria constructed by the department inside the garden. A closure notice was hung on the park gates the next day, and Eden has remained out of bounds for walkers since.

Major-General Z.U. Shah has said the army is contemplating doing away with entry fees at parks on the Maidan.

Following Shah?s intervention, the entry fee at Elliot Park was scaled down to Rs 3 from Rs 5.

Forest department officers maintain that Eden Gardens? condition had improved owing to regulated entry, and feared that the park would again turn wild if free entry is allowed.

An entry fee of Rs 2 was introduced last November at the park, after clearance from the army.