Walk into CK-CL Park on any morning after a wedding ceremony or reception has taken place in the community hall, and be prepared for a shocking sight — remains of the night before strewn all across the greens. And things have come to such a pass that nobody is willing to shoulder the responsibility of cleaning up.

“The other day during my morning walk I saw a barrel full of waste food on the walkway next to the community hall,” said a CK Block resident, asking not to be named. “The next day a cow knocked over the barrel in front of me, spreading the contents — including lentils and gravy- around the park. In no time, cows, dogs and birds started devouring the throwaway food. The barrel stayed that way for two days till we, residents, started complaining to the block committee. The mess was cleared only after five days.” 

Gopal Prasad Mandal of CL Block had planted saplings inside the edges of the park but they got crushed by the trash and bamboo poles dumped on them after the wedding ceremonies, he says. “It is natural for the park to be messy after a wedding but previously it would get cleaned up. But neither block committee nor the civic body seems to be bothered this winter despite repeated complaints from us.” 

Blame game 
General secretary of Bidhannagar CK-CL Block Residents’ Association, Justice (retd) Soumitra Sen, has been inundated with complaints but he says cleaning of the park is no longer his job. “In 2012-13, the block committee had decided that whenever a party hired part of the park along with the community hall, the block would charge Rs 2 for every square foot. With that money we would clean up afterwards,” says Sen. 

But he claims that last August, local councillor Saswati Mondal told them that they could not collect such charges. “We did not get anything in writing but after her verbal intimation we stopped taking the charge,” says Sen. “Since the municipality continues to charge Rs 3 per square foot for hiring the park, let them clean up now.” 

When contacted by The Telegraph Salt Lake, Mondal said the block committee could not charge anything as the land belongs to the municipality and not the block. But she refuses to accept that this means the civic body has to clean up after a mess. “If you let out your house to a tenant, do you send sweepers to clean his house after every party?” asks Mondal. “The park gets dirty because the block lets out the community hall and since the block committee collects rent for the hall let them clean the park. I have told them repeatedly to ask the wedding party to clean the mess and not to refund their caution money till it is done, but they don’t listen.”

Sen says their charge of Rs 8,000 for the hall (for members) includes Rs 1,500 for cleaning up and a Rs 1,000 refundable security deposit. “But the decorator only cleans up his materials — like bamboo and dried flowers — and the caterer cleans the kitchen area. The place that gets the dirtiest is the food court, for which no one takes responsibility. With the sweepers charging Rs 300 per head, and timely clean-up needing more than one pair of hands, the Rs 1,500 charge is not enough.” Nor can they raise the charge for fear of losing customers. “The block committee would have been obligated to clean the park if it was earning any revenue from it. Since we are not, then they who are should.” 

Desperate measures 
Mondal too has been receiving a barrage of calls about the mess in the park and says that if this continues she will stop granting permission to use the park for weddings. “If a wedding can take place in the community hall alone, then fine. Else let them find another venue to dirty. After this wedding season I won’t give permission to use the park to feed people,” she says. 

The block committee says that rent from the hall is their primary source of income and that without the park, the hall is insufficient to hold most gatherings. “If the councillor refuses to give permission for the park then it cannot be on an arbitrary basis for us alone. They will have to deny permission in every park of Salt Lake. And if they really do that, then they must maintain the park throughout the year too,” says Sen. 

In 2014, the block bought a lawn mower as the one in the municipality would rarely be free for hiring. “We maintain the cricket pitch too. The civic body earns money from letting out the park for cricket tournaments. Would corporate houses hire the field if we stopped maintaining it round the year?” Sen asks.

The process of hiring the park out for sports tournaments in the block is confusing too. “There is no clarity. The councillor told us we couldn’t charge for the park during weddings but she said nothing about sports. So we continue to charge Rs 3,500 from students and Rs 5,000 for corporate houses per day if they come to us,” says Sen.

But then the municipality lets out the park too. Once employees of two corporate houses landed up at CK-CL Park the same day — one had booked it with the block and another with the municipality. “We had to split the park in half and allow both to play,” Sen recalls. “And of course, it is we who clean the park afterwards. Just like we are being forced to clean up the wedding mess these days.”

Solutions next door
No park is spared the filth after a ceremony but other blocks have reached a compromise. “We do not charge a fee for the park but we make it compulsory for the party to hire a big vat from the municipality during their event. It stays at the venue from 8am on the day of the ceremony to 8am the next day and all the trash has to be dumped in it,” says executive member of Salt Lake BJ Block Committee Arup Kumar Pal. “Our caretaker cleans up the leftovers.”

FD Block charges Re 1 per square foot of the ground attached to their community hall without any objection from the councillor. “We take the money primarily for cleaning and our men do it quickly after a ceremony. Else in case of two back-to-back weddings, the second party would find themselves in the midst of a mess,” says vice-president of FD Block Association Saumitra Mukherjee.