No life in musical fountain as MLA, pvt firm play diverse tunes

Mangaluru: It’s been almost eight months since the

musical fountain

built at Rs 5 crore is ready, but it is not thrown open to public yet as MLA J R Lobo is not happy with the final output.

It has been eight years since the proposal for a musical fountain at the erstwhile Deer Park

near Kadri Park

was first mooted in 2009. It has now emerged that the delay in unveiling the project is due to the conflict of interest between the Mangalore Urban Development Authority (Muda) and the private firm implementing the project.

Mangaluru South MLA J R Lobo, the brain behind the project, told TOI that he was not happy with the project and this caused the delay in opening it to public. “The musical fountain did not turn out the way I conceived it. Since I was not too happy with the project, I have directed the authorities concerned to do the required changes. Those changes will be executed and the facility will be opened for public shortly,” Lobo said.

Meanwhile, M J Sridhar, project director of the private firm, blamed the Muda for not showing interest to throw it open for public.

“A detailed project report for the musical fountain was prepared in 2013. Muda invited tender only last year. We have completed the work of musical fountain within a year. We have also given a demo,” Sridhar said, adding that he was at a loss to comprehend why the unveiling of the facility is being delayed.

When his attention was drawn towards the concerns expressed by the MLA, Sridhar said it was impossible to please everybody. “The musical fountain comprises pictures on water curtain and a narrative to support the picture. We had curated the content on what was expected from us as per the written demand. However, the MLA wanted more,” he said.

“Renowned scholar B A Vivek Rai gave us the script. We worked on it for the content. However, the MLA was not pleased with the number of pictures and content we had used in the fountain. He wanted more content such as cock fights and church etc. Most of the people who witnessed the demonstration were happy with the content back then, except for Lobo. Anyway, we have incorporated what he wanted. Hope he likes it,” Sridhar added.

The musical fountain has been built opposite the Kadri Park. According to Sridhar, the facility works on a direct driven independent controlled system. The music, ranging from patriotic songs to bollywood numbers, is digitised and saved in a hard disc in wave format, Sridhar explained.