Congress proposal to reduce park entry fee shot down

A proposal to reduce the suggested hike in the entry fee at the Yashvantrao Chavan Udyan in Aranyeshwar was rejected by five votes against three in the Standing Committee meeting yesterday.

Congress Corporator Aba Bagul, the brain behind this park, noticed that Shiv Sena, BJP, and NCP came together and objected his proposal of reducing entry fee to the park. Maharashtra Navnirman Sena maintained statuesque during the voting.

Price rise imminent: The Yashwantrao Chavan garden in Aranyeshwar. Pic/Krunal Gosavi

Massive hike
The park authorities, where replicas of the seven wonders of the world have been kept on display, are charging Re 1 as entry fee from the visitors. Similarly, visitors are charged Rs 20 for entering the 4D theatre on the park's premises.

As per the new proposal, visitors entering the park will have shell out Rs 70, which includes the Rs 50 entry fee to the garden where the seven replicas are on display and Rs 20 to visit the 4D theatre.

"The garden is a PMC initiative and therefore entry fee should be nominal, so that a common man can afford it. There are 135 gardens in the city, but this is for the first time the PMC has decided to charge Rs 50 to visit a garden," Bagul said. "It's nothing but a return of the Pune pattern, wherein our alliance partner NCP once again supported the opposition parties. They had done this in the last term of PMC as well."

Bagul said though the civic body had spent around Rs 2 crore on the garden, it was unnecessary to charge an unaffordable fee from the visitors.
NCP's Baburao Chandere, who is the Standing Committee chairperson, said the proposal to hike entry fee was accepted at a Standing Committee meeting some fifteen days ago and the hike was been decided as per administration's docket.

"The issue will raised once again come during the General Body (GB) meeting, where all the parties will discuss the entrance fee," said Chandere.

Chandre rubbished Bagul's claim of Pune pattern. Shiv Sena group leader in the PMC Ashok Harnawal said his party would discuss this issue in the GB.

"Even we are also not in favour of hiking entry fee, but we will not support this proposal just because Bagul is in favour of reducing it," said Harnawal.

MNS Standing Committee member Kishor Shinde said his party did not want election on in this mater and hence we maintained statuesque. "Such subjects must be solved with discussions," Shinde said. u00a0