Nobody cares to watch Kempegowda's tower

One of the four watchtowers, constructed by the city’s founder Kempegowda at today’s KG Tower Park beside Sri Ramana Maharshi Ashram, reminds one of a badly damaged monument in a war-ravaged city. The watchtower, if one needs to be told, stands bang in the heart of the park.

The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) maintains the six-acre park eponymously named as Kempegowda Tower, and has been ostensibly spending lot of money for the upkeep of the park.

The watchtower, however, stands neglected.

Hundreds of people from Sadashivanagar and other nearby areas visit this park.

A little bit of focus by the authorities concerned on the maintenance of the watchtower would facilitate the visitors to know more about the historical monument. The authorities had made arrangements to ensure a sufficient number of lights and greenery around the watchtower, but did little to repair or conserve the broken statues around the tower itself. “It is a nice place and the BBMP authorities deserve appreciation for maintaining this park. Yet, I need to appeal to them to spend some money to replace the broken statues,’’ says visitor S Ramakrishna.

Precious little information is available about the tower. The plaque says that Kempegowda built the watchtower that set the limits to which the town of Bangalore would later extend. Since the park is situated away from the Sri Ramana Maharshi Road, the tower is not visible from the road.

“It would be better to keep the park open during the day for the benefit of visitors from other cities. For example, the watchtower at the Lalbagh is accessible to visitors from morning till evening. If this park is kept open along the lines of Lalbagh, it would be useful for visitors to go to the watchtower,’’ opines Sundar Babu, a resident of Sadashivanagar.

Many visitors to the park contend that the department of archaeology, monuments and museums should to chalk out a plan to conserve the watchtower at the park.

They insist that the annual ritual of painting the tower or putting up a few garlands around the tower on the occasion of Kempegowda’s birthday will not help preserve it.

HM Siddanna Gowda, deputy director, department of archaeology, museums and heritage, assures that he will look into the matter. “I will visit the spot and see what can be done to conserve the tower,’’ promises Gowda.

If the state of the other three towers (reported about earlier in DNA) is anything to go by, one might take this promise with a pinch of salt too.