Rising mental health issues evoke need of more parks

Islamabad : With a manifold rise in mental health issues following the coronavirus outbreak, the need for more parks and other recreational facilities has increased for the residents of Federal Capital.

According to health experts, parks with their green surface covered with trees and flower beds contribute enormously to the psychological well-being of the humans, who have been adversely impacted by the contagion with limited recreational opportunities and mobility restrictions in place.

The number of mental health cases in the capital had gone up by 100 per cent after the outbreak of COVID-19, compounded with a limited number of parks and green places, which were also in shabby conditions, the experts said.

No new park has been built in the urban areas during the last decade while the rural areas are completely deprived of the facility.

“It is a high time for the city managers to set up more parks and green places in the urban and rural areas of Islamabad to cope with the mental health issues being faced by its dwellers particularly in the wake of coronavirus pandemic,” Raja Khurram Nawaz, a local Member of the National Assembly (MNA), said passionately.

Talking to APP on Sunday, he said there were over 230 small parks in sectoral areas of Islamabad, which remained deserted to their dilapidated conditions. The situation in rural areas was bleak as not a single park like Fatima Jinnah Park in Sector F-9 had been built there to date, he added.

He said the unplanned development in the outskirts of Islamabad left the rural people in the lurch, keeping them deprived of the basic amenities of life. The MNA said the Capital Development Authority (CDA) should follow Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Clean & Green Pakistan vision, and set up new parks and develop green spaces in other than sectoral areas as it had owned sufficient land in those areas.

He mentioned encroachment of the state land by miscreants in the rural areas such as Burma and Farash Town. The residents in some areas had even started burying their loved ones in the state land. Khurram said the conversion of state land through green spaces and parks would save it from encroachment and help provide outdoor recreational opportunities to the residents.