NTR Gardens is a small public,

urban park An urban park or metropolitan park, also known as a municipal park (North America) or a public park, public open space, or municipal gardens ( UK), is a park in cities and other incorporated places that offer recreation and green space to r ...

of adjacent to

Hussain Sagar Hussain Sagar (alternatively referred to as Tank Bund; ) is a heart-shaped lake in Hyderabad, Telangana, built by Ibrahim Quli Qutb Shah in 1563. It is spread across an area of and is fed by the River Musi. A large monolithic statue of the Gau ...

lake in

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of Southern Indi ...

, India. It is named after the former

Chief minister of Andhra Pradesh The chief minister of Andhra Pradesh is the chief executive of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. In accordance with the Constitution of India, the governor is a state's '' de jure'' head, but '' de facto'' executive authority rests with th ...

, N. T. Rama Rao. Constructed in several phases since 1999, the area that is predominantly a park is geographically located in the centre of the city, and is close to other tourist attractions such as

Birla Mandir Birla Mandir (Birla Temple) refers to different Hindu temples or Mandirs built by the Birla family, in different cities across India. All these temples are magnificently built, some of them in white marble or in sandstone. The temples are gene ...

, Necklace Road and Lumbini Park. It is maintained by the Buddha Purnima Project Authority that functions under the directives of the Government of Telangana.

History

Beginnings

In 1999, a land of from a plot was utilized for erecting a memorial for N. T. Rama Rao, the former Chief Minister of unbifurcated

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

. It was inaugurated by N. Chandrababu Naidu. It was planned to further expand this area, which has since been referred to as NTR Gardens, by constructing a museum about N. T. Rama Rao. This memorial was a part of the Buddha Purnima Project that was being handled by

Hyderabad Urban Development Authority The Hyderabad Urban Development Authority (HUDA) was created in 1975, vide an act of the State Assembly of Andhra Pradesh. Its jurisdiction was expanded in 2008 by merging it with the surrounding mandals to form the Hyderabad Metropolitan Dev ...

(HUDA) for the beautification and development of the

lake and its surroundings as a major tourist attraction. NTR garden

In 2000, the

Government of Andhra Pradesh Government of Andhra Pradesh, abbreviated as, GOAP, or, Andhra Government, is the subnational government for the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is an elected government with 175 MLAs elected to the Legislative Assembly of Andhra Pradesh fo ...

expressed its plans to develop this area with several projects such the NTR Gardens itself, a

rock garden A rock garden, also known as a rockery and formerly as a rockwork, is a garden, or more often a part of a garden, with a landscaping framework of rocks, stones, and gravel, with planting appropriate to this setting. Usually these are small ...

and an

IMAX IMAX is a proprietary system of high-resolution cameras, film formats, film projectors, and theaters known for having very large screens with a tall aspect ratio (approximately either 1.43:1 or 1.90:1) and steep stadium seating. Graeme ...

theatre. Few days later, a government official firstly said that the rock garden will be taken up by

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, wikt:دبي, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the List of cities in the United Arab Emirates#Major cities, most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 ...

-based NRIs at a cost of

Rs. Rupee is the common name for the currencies of India, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, Seychelles, and Sri Lanka, and of former currencies of Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (as the Gulf rupee), British East Africa, B ...

crore A crore (; abbreviated cr) denotes ten million (10,000,000 or 107 in scientific notation) and is equal to 100 lakh in the Indian numbering system. It is written as 1,00,00,000 with the local 2,2,3 style of digit group separators (one lakh is eq ...

s. Secondly the IMAX theatre project, which was said to cost Rs. 52 crore was allotted to a private firm. Both these projects were to be executed in the same plot which housed the memorial.

Controversy

Upon the beginning of work at these gardens in January 2000, a

petition A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer called supplication. In the colloquial sense, a petition is a document addressed to some offi ...

by two

non-profit organizations A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

sought an immediate halt of construction activity at the gardens. They contended that regulations showed the area around the lake as a recreation zone which must be kept away from all constructions for commercial or residential purposes. Since they claimed that these proposed projects violated all these, they sought a public hearing and an environment impact assessment before allowing these projects to continue. Accordingly, the local apex court instructed the authorities to stop the construction until further orders. A media report suggested that according to the 1980 HUDA Master Plan, the area where the NTR Gardens are located originally was a water body, but a

gazetted A gazette is an official journal, a newspaper of record, or simply a newspaper. In English and French speaking countries, newspaper publishers have applied the name ''Gazette'' since the 17th century; today, numerous weekly and daily newspapers ...

notification in 1994 could allow such construction activities.

Present

In 2001, the extensive work at of gardens was completed at a cost of Rs. 40 crores. Besides a variety of plants, the gardens also house a souvenir complex, a visitors train, restaurants and a waterfall.

References

External links