More than three weeks have passed since Durga Puja concluded, yet almost a third of Deshapriya Park remains occupied by the pandal. According to the puja organisers, dismantling the entire structure will take another fortnight.

While the pandal stands in a large portion of the northern corner of one of Calcutta’s largest grounds, the rest of the field is either littered or undulated with large holes, or an overgrowth of grass makes it difficult to play.

The poor state of the ground has forced several cricket clubs to skip their outfield practice session for weeks.

Many of the cricket coaching camps have suspended catching and fielding practice sessions for their trainees, though the division leagues run by the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) and various age category tournaments are about to start very soon.

The ground is also used by many for a jog or a brief run in the morning. They, too, have been forced to discontinue their activity or do it on the metalled walkway around the park against their wishes.

Sudipta Kumar, the secretary of Deshapriya Park Durga Puja committee, said: “Lakshmi Puja and Kali Puja were also held in the pandal after Durga Puja.”

“The structure could not have been dismantled because Lakshmi Puja and Kali Puja had to be organised there,” he said.

“We have now started dismantling the pandal, but it will take another fortnight to remove it. It takes several weeks to erect a pandal, and the dismantling cannot be done swiftly,” said Kumar.

An official of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), custodian of the park, said many grounds in Calcutta suffer the same problem.

Owing to “increasing clout” of the Durga Puja organisers, the KMC has no option but to look on helplessly, admitted the official. “We prod and urge them to dismantle the pandal at the earliest. That is the best we can do,” said the official.

A south Calcutta resident who used to run inside Deshapriya Park regularly said the organisers should have a plan to dismantle the pandal faster.

One could run or play in the ground when the pandal was being erected, but it has become impossible to use the ground now that the Puja is over.

“Earlier, at least one could run or play in the portion of the ground where the pandal was not being built. But after Durga Puja, the entire ground has been in a horrible shape. Waste remained littered across the ground for weeks. Some of the waste is still spread across the ground. Grasses have grown tall because of a lack of activity on the ground. The ground is also very undulated, with large holes made as a result of inserting bamboo poles,” he said.

Kumar said the organisers will flatten the undulated surfaces and fix the holes in the ground, along with dismantling the pandal. “We do it every year,” he claimed.

An official of one of the four cricket clubs using Deshapriya Park as their home ground told Metro that the “warm-up sessions of the trainees during which they used to do a few rounds of the ground have been kept on hold.”

“One, the entire ground is not available to run and two, running on this surface may cause injuries to the trainees,” said the official.