BANGALORE: For a city which produced the most number of swimming
champions — Lorraine Verghese, Shanaz Shacoor, Shikha Tandon, Nisha
Millet and Rehan Poncha, to name a few — Bangalore has only 10 swimming
pools, including six private pools.

Aspiring swimmers hoping to
don the Karnataka colours in national swimming meets have to make do
with these, as popular pools were shut down or went to pot.

The
first corporation pool at Corporation Circle was closed and in its
place, a new annexe of the corporators’ block was built. The Kensington
swimming pool at Ulsoor lake was closed in February 2008 and has still
not opened. It once attracted the best from the area but now looks like a
haunted house, with the pool and changing rooms in a dilapidated
condition.

The Sankey Tank pool, which was leased out to a
private party and operated as KC Reddy Swim Centre, is now leased to
Global Swimming Club, but most of the regular swimmers cannot afford the
membership fee and have been forced to quit their favourite sport.

A veteran swimmer and a regular at Kensington pool, M Kumar has won two
gold, two silver and two bronze medals in the State Veteran Swimming
competitions. He now travels 16km from Fraser Town to the National
Games Village (NGV) pool. Said Kumar: “I paid only Rs 16 per hour at
Kensington or Sankey, but now I pay Rs 110 per hour at the NGV pool.
This is proving costly.”

Marlyn De Sousa of Cox Town pointed out
that after Kensington closed, many gave up their daily swimming routine
and the few who chose to continue at other pools are not satisfied,
with time and distance putting the brakes
on the exercise. “NGV is clean but it is only a 25-metre oval pool with
no lanes,” said Marlyn, adding that this premier city needs another 20
pools.

The Directorate of Youth Services and Sports,
it is learnt, has instructed private operators to open these pools to
the public at the prescribed nominal rate of Rs 16 per hour for eight
hours, but that is not happening.

Swimming camps are crowded

Apart from the high membership fee, all private pools leased out by the
corporation conduct swimming camps, which cost Rs 1,700-2,000 for 21
days. These camps and advanced swimming clinics attract a big number —
in fact, the attendance at pools is higher compared even to cricket
camps. Since the number of pools is few, parents are forced to cough up
big amounts.

But in most cases, the solitary instructor employed
to conduct the many batches ends up swimming against the tide, and is
in no position to teach the large number of kids enrolled in each batch.

Danish Ahmed, a regular at Jayanagar swimming pool, the only
corporation pool functioning as per guidelines, pointed out that gaining
entry here is tough. “We have to wait in a queue for hours for an hour
of swimming. Youngsters are aware that swimming is the best fitness
exercise but since there are very few pools, most of us have no choice
but to hit the gyms. Compared to about 10 pools, we have more than 1,000
gyms and all are doing well,” said Danish.

“Many new extensions
are planned with space earmarked for parks and swimming pools. But in
the end we see only commercial complexes in their place and no questions
are asked,” pointed out Kumar, adding that land sharks are cutting out
pools which the city sorely needs.