This is going to be a case of my park being better and bigger than your parks.
The Janeshwar Misra Park that is being built by the Akhilesh Yadav government will span across 367 acres of land — four times the size of Ms Mayawati’s much publicised Ambedkar memorial park.
Ms Mayawati’s Ambedkar Park in Lucknow is spread across 98 acres and the Kanshi Ram Memorial and the Eco Park cover an area of 228 acres while the Noida memorial is spread over 88 acres.
The park, interestingly, is being built at the same site where the Mayawati government had proposed to build the Ambedkar Green Garden.
The major difference between the Janeshwar Misra Park and parks built during the BSP regime is that the Samajwadi Park will have a 90 per cent green cover, a cycling track, a jogging track and some water bodies too.
The Janeshwar Misra Park is said to be a dream project of Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Mr Janeshwar Misra was one of the founding members of the Samajwadi Party and was popularly known as “Chhote Lohia” in Samajwadi circles. The party has promised a park in his memory in its manifesto.
The proposed Janeshwar Misra Park is a part of a huge green belt sprawling over an area of nearly 600 acres.
The site had been under court scrutiny following a petition by Gomti Nagar Jan Kalyan Maha Samiti after Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) changed the land use of the site and converted it into a residential colony, Vyom Khand.
Later, the land was converted back into a green belt and the authorities went on to plant over one lakh saplings in the area to preserve its “green” character.
Government officials insist that the Janeshwar Misra Park will not tamper with the green character and the present land use.