Kerala CPM opens its theme park Pioneer News Service | Kannur
The Kerala unit of the CPI (M), which reportedly has an asset base of about Rs 4,000 crore in the State, commissioned its Rs 30-crore amusement park, Vismaya Infotainment Centre, at the temple town of Parassinikkadavu in the Marxist heartland of Kannur. The water theme park, which had invited severe criticisms right from its inception stage, is the latest mega-project from the party after its corporate- look hospital projects and three-channel Kairali TV. The park, set over 30 acres of land on a scenic slope in the temple city, with several pleasure rides and poll activity facilities, was inaugurated by the CPI (M) State secretary and Kannur strongman Pinarayi Vijayan at 11 am Sunday. The park was thrown open to the public at 2.00 pm the same day. The glitter of the grand opening ceremony was somewhat marred by a group of party comrades and park visitors beating up a 14-year-old girl from Tamil Nadu accusing her of snatching a half-a-sovereign gold necklace from a woman. The girl was beaten up right in front of at least half a dozen policemen. However, the party workers and the police failed to prove that the girl had stolen the ornament as they could not recover it from her. The Vismaya park, billed as the first such initiative in the cooperative sector in the country, was being run by the company, Malabar Pleasures India Limited, formed under the Malabar Tourism Development Cooperative Society, controlled fully by the CPI (M). Pinarayi Vijayan had to take up the task of inaugurating the park in the absence of Chief Minister and party Politburo member VS Achuthanandan, who was supposed to inaugurate it as per schedule. Achuthanandan, who had been a vehement critic of the park project for ideological and other reasons (like the wastage of water by park in a frssh water-scarcity area), skipped the programme as he was hospitalised in Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday due to health complications. Home Minister and CPI (M) Politburo member Kodiyeri Balakrishnan and Health Minister and party central committee member PK Sreemathi _ both from Kannur _ inaugurated the water rides and the wave pool at the park respectively. Curiously, the party or the company that ran the park did not even refer to the absence of Achuthanandan though all the notices, banners, flex boards advertised him as the man to inaugurate the park. When the time came, Pinarayi just inaugurated the park. In this sense, the inaugural of the park became a telling example of the perennial enmity between the neo-liberalist camp in the party led by Pinarayi and his Kannur lobby and the hardliner Marxists led by Achuthanandan. Commissioning the park, Pinarayi said all the negative campaigns by several quarters against the park project had turned out to be beneficial to its popularity. He tried to disprove the critics wrong explaining how the park was not using groundwater for its operations as a water theme park. "The park is not using ground water. From the beginning, it was made clear that the park would harvest rainwater to meet all its requirements. The park has the largest rainwater harvesting facility in the country," Vijayan said. The company running the pleasure facility has constructed a huge rainwater-harvesting tank with a capacity to store five crore litres. However, critics said the claims about using harvested rainwater for all the pleasure activity in the water theme park was eyewash designed to confound the people. "The park has to either depend on groundwater or the river in the area. The park has ripped off the hypocritical environmentalism of the CPI (M). The same party which had campaigned against the Coca-Cola plant at Plachimada in Palakkad district for exploitation of ground water is now draining groundwater for pleasure business in its pursuit of making big money," K Sudhakaran, Kannur MLA, said. When the project began four years ago, criticisms had come up about a party of the working class promoting an amusement park. People residing near the park had also come out against the project, saying that it could cause water scarcity in the area. Those opposed to the CPI (M) venture said that it would be impossible to run a park that had 80 per cent water rides, with just rainwater harvesting. Entry fee at the park will be Rs 300 per adult on working days and Rs 375 on weekends. The expectation is to collect Rs 3.5 lakh a day in ticket charges. PP Chandran, managing director of the Malabar Tourism Development Cooperative Society Limited, said Vismaya would be the biggest amusement park in the region and the promoters hoped to attract a large number of holidaymakers from Kerala's northern districts and even south Karnataka. 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