Ramlila Maidan to get a facelift

New Delhi: Ramlila Maidan, which recently witnessed the high-voltage protest by Anna Hazare, may soon get a facelift with top officials of Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) being asked to prepare a plan for its redevelopment.

Jagdish Mamgain, Chairman of MCD Works Committee, has asked MCD Commissioner KS Mehra to prepare a plan for improvement and beautification of Ramlila Maidan, which comes under the civic agency.

He said during Hazare's protest, the MCD charged Rs 5,000 per day as rent for the ground and a one-time payment of Rs 1,000 as sanitation charge.

"Against Rs 1,000, MCD has to arrange hundreds of employees and spend lakhs of rupees on maintenance," he said asking the Commissioner to prepare a re-development plan and a management system for Ramlila Maidan immediately.


Mamgain underlined the need for construction of drains, public-convenience and boundary walls at the Maidan.

"As programmes are organised regularly, there is a need for permanent arrangement for sanitation and regular repair work be carried out. Temporary staff or on contract basis may be recruited for this," he suggested.

The spacious ground which can hold around 30,000 people at a time was witness to historic rallies and protests like Jawahar Lal Nehru's address on Sino-Indian war (1962), Lal Bahadur Shashtri's 'Jai Jawan Jai Kisan' rally (1965) and Indira Gandhi's address on Bangladesh war (1971) beside the mass rally by Jai Prakash Narayan (1975) during Emergency.

Before Hazare's protest last month, yoga guru Ramdev also organised his controversial protest against black money at the Maidan.