The Mohammad Ali Park Durga Puja will be held inside the park this year after a three-year break. The erection of the pandal has started.
The Puja was shifted out of the park in 2019 after an inspection by engineers showed that an underground reservoir on which the park rests is in poor condition. If the reservoir collapsed, the ground could cave in along with people, engineers had warned. The reservoir has not been repaired yet.
A puja committee member said the Puja would be held on a part of the ground that does not have the reservoir beneath it.
Engineers of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) said a portion of the ground does not have the reservoir beneath it but it was not clear if the pandal was being erected on that portion.
“Last year, the Puja was held occupying a staircase and a small part of the ground. This year, we will have to inspect the site to see if the Puja pandal is being erected over a portion that has the reservoir below or not,” a senior KMC official said after learning from The Telegraph that the pandal was being erected on the ground.
Rehana Khatoon, councillor of Ward 44 that includes Mohammad Ali Park, said: “No portion of the pandal is being built above the reservoir. The puja committee has barricaded the portion that has the reservoir underneath so no one can go into it.”
“There will be no fair on the ground. Only the Puja will be held there,” she said.
The park has remained closed since April 2019 when a portion of a wall of the water reservoir that was built during the British period collapsed.
An inspection by KMC engineers and professors of engineering at Jadavpur University found cracks in the underground reservoir.
