BHOPAL: Bhopal’s first musical fountain, inaugurated by the Chief Minister Kamal Nath over two months ago, has been shut, due to nonpayment of the dues.
Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) took over four years to develop the fountain but it did not operate for even two months.
At the time of inauguration, Minister of urban administration Jaivardhan Singh and former mayor Alok Sharma were present and Sharma had then said that the department of culture should work with BMC to dig out other details of the history of Bhopal.
At the time Sharma said that the history of Bhopal will be depicted through the fountain, using laser shows.
BMC is reeling under finance crunch and due to its failure to pay one third of the amount, promised to the firm engaged in operation of the fountain, the shows were stopped.
The firm Ripples engineering private limited, responsible for operation of the musical fountain, shut it on January 31.
Though, the officials are hesitating in revealing the real reason for the closure of the fountain, they say that the scripts to be shown were under dispute and that is why the operations are shut.
BMC had planned to show the story of Bhopal through light and sound show, but the previous scripts were discarded by the state archeology department.
Later, when they pushed through revised script, the inauguration was done by the CM and the fountain started.
On the first day the script based on life and times of Mahatma Gandhi, was presented through light and sound show.
The fountain water served as screen and the show was presented before the viewers.
Inaugurated by Kamal Nath
Inaugurated on December 9 by the CM Kamal Nath the musical fountain was one of the hyped and controversial projects of the BMC. Earlier, the location where it was set-up was under dispute and then the script of the stories to be shown were stuck in controversies. The entire project cost the BMC around Rs 7 crore and the civic body owes Rs 2.4 crore to the firm. The auditorium where the project is developed has a capacity to accommodate over 200 persons at a time. There was an average footfall of over 150 persons in the light and sound shows that were of half-an-hour duration. There were two shows that ran between 06:30 pm and 7 pm and then from 07:30 pm to 8 pm.
Offical speak
Additional commissioner in the BMC Pawan Singh says that the viewers were bored of watching the same story every day and that is why there were less number of footfalls. The shows will be resumed after fresh scripts are with us, he says.
