Ramu Botanical Garden, set up in Cox's Bazar in a bid to provide locals and tourists with recreational facilities, is now in a poor condition, thanks to its mismanagement.
Lack of maintenance, inadequate budget allocation and manpower has turned the only botanical garden in the district almost into a jungle, alleged locals.
Located in the Rajarkul forest of Ramu upazila, the amusement centre is some 30 kilometres away from the Cox's Bazar beach city.
The garden, which started its journey on July 05, 2013, on a 75-acre land, has every potential of becoming of a tourist hotspot. However, it is suffering from a number of problems, locals added.
The number of visitors is also decreasing day by day due to manpower crisis, and lack of funds, according to the garden authorities.
Contacted, Nazmul Hossain, Range Officer-in-Charge of the Botanical Garden, said, "No fund has been allocated for the garden since its establishment."
Visiting the garden, it has been seen that bushes are now growing haphazardly instead of different kinds of fruit and flower trees.
Some fallen trees have been kept here and there. And for this, many nature-lovers cannot visit the place as per their will.
Several tourists who came to see the garden expressed their frustration after entering it saying that there is nothing to be seen here.
Naima Rahman, a teacher who visited the garden with a group of students, said, "I'm very disappointed seeing the dilapidated condition of this botanical garden."
Sadeq Mahmud, a student of Cox's Bazar International University, said, "Once it was a nice garden with flowers and trees. But the garden is now completely ruined."
According to the authorities, although the garden was set up a long time ago, it is yet to be gazetted officially. As a result, there is no ticket counter for the visitors. And for this, the government is losing revenue.
Once the budget is received, the work of renovating the garden will start in full swing, said the authorities saying that the government has plans to upgrade and extend it to a 200 acres of land.
Divisional Officer of Cox's Bazar South Forest Department, Md Sarwar Alam, said, "Students, teachers, researchers, and others who used to come here on excursions, had to visit this botanical garden."
He added that if the entry fee for visitors was fixed, a huge amount of revenue would be collected every year.
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