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It will be a trip down memory lane for the chief minister when he flags off the first sports complex and mini-stadium in north Calcutta on Sunday. The site — a 73-cottah plot in Hatibagan known as the Laha Colony Math — used to be his childhood playground.
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s uncle, poet Sukanta Bhattacharjee, also played on the grounds. The plot on Raja Nabakrishna Street has suffered decades of neglect since then.
The Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) will invest Rs 1 crore to develop the complex, which will be named Sukanta Sports Arena after the poet, and a children’s park, to be named Purnendu Sishu Udyan, on a 20-cottah plot opposite it. Both cricket and football can be played at the stadium.
The civic body has allotted Rs 1 lakh for preparation of the project blueprint. ESPACE will design the complex.
“The MP and MLA local area development funds will be utilised for the implementation of the project. Local MP Sudhanshu Sil has allotted Rs 6.5 lakh for the project,” said municipal commissioner Alapan Bandyopadhyay.
“North Calcutta is badly in need of a sports complex. The project could not be started earlier because of non-availability of a suitable plot. Businessman Nawal Joshi purchased the Laha Colony Math and gifted it to us for public use,” said mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya.
“I am from north Calcutta and a keen follower of sports. I decided to give the plot to the civic body to help it groom sporting talent,” said Joshi.
He owns a property on Covent Road where the CMC has been a tenant since World War II. Joshi had asked the civic authorities several times to vacate the building. They agreed to vacate the Covent Road property if Joshi bought the Laha Colony Math and handed it over to the CMC.
The businessman was also asked to bear the cost of construction of the labour quarters where the civic employees staying on Covent Road will be relocated.
The CMC had long-standing plans to build a sports complex on the Hatibagan plot but lacked the funds to procure it, said a civic official.
