By IANS,
Kannur : A Rs.250 million amusement park promoted by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) will open its gates to visitors Aug 31 here.
Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan will inaugurate the park.
The park, Vismaya Infotainment Centre, is said to be the first such initiative in the cooperative sector. It is run by the Malabar Pleasures India Limited under party-led Malabar Tourism Development Cooperative Society. The society is now headed by K.K. Narayanan, a local CPI-M leader.
The Vismaya Infotainment Centre is at Parassinikkadvu, 17 km from here. The amusement park is located in 30 acres of land and can handle 3,000-3,500 visitors at a time.
When the project began four years ago, it invited criticism from detractors that a party of the working class should not promote an amusement park.
People residing near the park also came out against the project, saying that it could cause water scarcity in the area.
Commenting on the criticism against the project, CPI-M state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan said those campaigns “only helped popularising the project”.
“All the progressive forces in the society wanted immediate completion of this project,” Pinarayi told reporters at the park Tuesday.
The park authorities claimed that the entire water required for the facility will be made available through rain water harvesting.
“Our rain harvesting facility has a capacity of 5 crore litres (50 million litres). This could be the first amusement park with such a facility. If rain fails, we have wells to meet the water requirement,” K.V. Vijayan, Vismaya Infotainment Centre marketing director, told IANS.
The park has 80 percent water rides and 20 percent of dry rides. Entry fee at the park will be Rs.300 per person for adults on working days and Rs.375 on weekends, park authorities said.
Funds for the project were raised from various banks and through memberships by way of shares.
The park would be the latest addition to the increasing asset base of the CPI-M, which already has considerable stakes in Kairali TV channel and also owns a few hospitals and many buildings across the state.