Now a lost sight: Children playing in the nearby ground / Photograph taken from Pikist

Public grounds, a necessity

Free spaces are alarmingly shrinking due to a population boom in the cities. The government must preserve open spaces and invest in public grounds for the recreational activities of the poor, especially the children among them.

Lament about children’s obsession with digital devices and a host of physical and mental consequences that follow — is not new. However, both parents and the government must understand that the absence of proper open spaces, especially in the urban areas, leaves children with only a virtual world to explore.

The benefits of a playground cannot be overstated. Apart from the obvious physical benefits, playgrounds provide an alternative learning environment. This is where children learn to work in teams, take risks and build confidence. Speaking to NPR, Sergio Pellis, a researcher at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, explains that free-play changes the connections of the neurons at the front end of your brain. This pre-frontal cortex helps regulate emotions, and aids in planning and coordinating to solve problems.

With population growth in the urban spaces, more and more free land is taken up to construct buildings. All this comes at the cost of children’s right to play which is recognised by Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - ‘State parties shall recognise the right of the child to rest and leisure and to engage in play and recreational activities.’

Different international bodies have different standards for the required open space per capita, from the World Health Organisation (WHO) setting it to nine square metres to the United Nations’ 30 square metres. Various news reports have highlighted how most Indian metros fare poorly on that metric, with Chennai and Mumbai hovering around the one square metre mark. Even within that limited space, municipal corporations prefer parks over grounds. Take Bangalore’s case - According to Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike’s (BBMP) figures from 2018, the city has around 1484 parks but only 192 grounds for a population of one crore.

Related link: Formulating open-space policies for India’s cities: The case of Mumbai

Parks vs grounds

While they make up for good photographs, parks do little for the cause of children. Riddled with obstructions in the form of benches, ornamental structures, and open-gym equipment, they restrict open play. Moreover, any such equipment would only cater to a particular age group, and maintaining it would be a costly affair. There are strong concerns that the money involved in constructing and maintaining parks is what facilitates a mutually beneficial relationship between the contractors and politicians.

Grounds, on the other hand, provide children and adults with the freedom to customise their physical activity. It can help children to truly express themselves. Even sports infrastructure cannot substitute for playgrounds. Any particular sporting activity excludes those who do not ‘fit the bill’, discriminating on the lines of gender and ability. News reports from Delhi and Bangalore also suggest that these parks are not accessible for a variety of reasons including poor maintenance, fixed timings and encroachments.

No play in educational institutions

In the absence of support from civic bodies, children turn to school as the only place to engage in any recreational activity. However, that recourse does not provide much respite. Play is at the bottom of the priorities of educational institutions. According to a District Information System for Education (DISE) survey in 2016, 40% of schools in India do not have a playground. In Hyderabad, it is as high as 50%. Instead of tackling the issue, the New Education Policy 2020 may have proliferated the problem by advocating that a school complex can share resources such as a playground. A ‘school complex’ would mean any senior secondary school coupled with lower grades in a five-to-ten kilometre radius. If a school does have a playground, children are given a meagre 40-minute to hour-long games period per week. That of course is at the mercy of teachers who cancel it to ‘complete the syllabus.’

A football turf pitch of the size of a tennis court is open to its customers on the outskirts of Bangalore. They charge around Rs. 700 per hour. Mushrooming of such exclusive spaces is worrisome. The rich can enrol their kids in such clubs, make use of amenities in gated apartment complexes and pay for the hefty fees of private schools. The urban poor cannot. Not investing in public grounds is a war against the poor, the price of which we will have to pay in the future.