SIALKOT - The few recreational parks present in Sialkot district have been presenting a very miserable condition due to the apathy and negligence of the local administration.

The officials have miserably failed in providing basic facilities at these parks to the visitors. In Sialkot, the Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park has been lying abandoned due to unavailability of basic facilities by the Sialkot TMA, as the mounting trash heaps could be witnessed in the park. It seemed that there was no concept of cleanliness in this park. All the iron and wooden swings, marry-go-rounds are lying damaged and useless there in this park. The water lake has now become a pond of the sewerage due to the alleged slackness of Sialkot Municipal Corporation. The several-feet high self-grown grass and reeds have already occupied all the ways, lawns, grounds while the water lake has dried up in Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park. Due to which, the number of the visitors has reduced to a great extant, in this regard.

The grass lying untrimmed there for the last several months due to which it causes spread of mosquitoes and other insects there in this park. Having very historical importance, now Sialkot's Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park has become a safer place for the local addicts and stray dogs which could be found easily everywhere in this park. It also lacks the proper security arrangements.

In Pasrur, the area's only recreational park namely "Nawaz Sharif Park" named after the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, has also been lying victim of official apathy of Pasrur Municipal Committee. The cleanliness situation has now become the worst in this park. The local people are of the view that the Pasrur Municipality has allegedly turned a blind eye to the mounted heaps of trash and garbage everywhere in Pasrur park with oozing bad smell and suffocation.

The local addicts have also converted the park into their safer place due to the poor security system. Several encroachments have also been surfaced in various parts of the park by local people. Unknown thieves have already taken away the various parts of the swings affixed in this park. The miserable condition of Nawaz Sharif Park Pasrur is also leaving a big question mark on the performance of concerned officials of Pasrur Municipal Committee. The trash heaps speak the volume of height of negligence of Pasrur municipality.

Local social, religious, business and political circles of Sialkot and Pasrur have expressed grave concern over this miserable condition of this park.

When contacted, the officials of Sialkot Municipal Corporation said that the corporation lacked resources for the purpose. They urged Commissioner Gujranwala Division Asad Ullah Faiz and Deputy Commissioner Muhammad Tahir Wattu to take serious notice of the situation.

It is a decades-long misfortune for the people of Daska and Sambrial tehsils that both the cities have no recreational park since the creation of Pakistan. No one including the local elected political representatives ever bothered to take any interest in establishing recreational parks in Daska and Sambrial cities.

The local people have to go to Sialkot, Gujranwala, Lahore, Islamabad and other parts of the country for recreation. The social, religious, educational, sports, business and political circles of both Daska and Sambrial have expressed grave concern over the situation. They urged Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar to ensure early establishment recreational parks at Daska and Sambrial.