No playground, parks for hill children

Lack of space pushes hill kids indoors

Kurseong, 3 June: It’s all studies and work and no play for children here in Kurseong, with not a single park for them in town. And local people have been giving this matter a thought for quite some time now.

Children of the hills

One local, Prashant Rai, said that after the formation of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) in Darjeeling Hills, officials are busy planning for various projects and schemes for the overall development of the region, mainly the tourism sector, but no one has given the Hill children’s plight a second thought. People here say children desperately need a park in Kurseong as well as other areas of the Hills. “It is unfortunate that the children of Kurseong are being deprived of a powerful medium through which they can develop their personality and health. There is at least one children park in places like Siliguri and others I have been to. Due to lack of such parks, most of the children stay indoors after school while some play in the busy roads, which can lead to accidents anytime,” Mr Rai said.

Another Kuseong resident, Sunil Sharma, said as a young boy he used to play in school grounds. “But of late, most of the schools have put up big gates and fenced their property. So even these grounds are now out of bounds for the children,” he said. GTA official in Kurseong said that since the formation of the GTA, several initiatives have been taken by them, and that they could now think about building such places for children in the Hills in the near future.

Source:sns

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