Sector / Srikakulam · Andhra Pradesh

The peaks were theirs.
The park is ours.

Twenty-six years after Operation Vijay, a once-neglected stretch in Srikakulam has been rebuilt — in three months, for two crore rupees — as a Kargil Victory Theme Park. A memorial wall. A first-of-its-kind pickleball court. 57 names. One promise.

Built3 Months Invested₹2 Crore Honours57 Heroes AuthoritySUDA

Begin the walk

00 The Ground

An aerial reading of the park.

Pinch, drag and orbit the model below. Every amenity that follows in this story sits inside this footprint — from the Wall of Kargil at the entrance to the open theatre at the rear, the pickleball court along the eastern edge, and the topiary-lined walking loop that ties it all together.

Full Park Drag to orbit

01 Thematic · Memorial

The Wall of Kargil War.

A specialised wall in 3D models and murals translates the geography of Kargil into something a school student in Srikakulam can read in five minutes — the icy ridgelines, the weapons, and the three operations that ended the war.

Wall of Kargil Tap a mural

The mural panel runs left to right across the entrance plaza. The Drass–Kargil–Batalik sector is rendered in raised relief, with battle peaks — Tiger Hill, Tololing, Point 4875 — marked by small brass studs. Beneath the relief, weapon silhouettes show what the Indian Army carried up those slopes: the Bofors, the Carl Gustaf, the INSAS, the Mirage 2000.

Three plaques summarise the joint campaign of the Army, Air Force and Navy.

Army

Operation Vijay

May–Jul 1999 · Recapture

Air Force

Op Safed Sagar

Air support · High altitude

Navy

Operation Talwar

Sea denial · Arabian Sea

3D relief of the Drass–Kargil sector
Weapons used in the war, in scale
Plaques for Army, Air Force, Navy
Designed for school visits

02 Memorial

For the 57 who answered.

Fifty-seven names from Srikakulam district who served in the Kargil War, etched into a single wall and watched over by the national flag. This is the quietest spot in the park, and the one most asked for.

Memorial Wall Orbit gently

03 Sport · First in District

The pickleball court Srikakulam didn't know it was waiting for.

Pickleball is the fastest-growing racquet sport in the world. Until this park opened, you had to go to Hyderabad or Visakhapatnam to play it. Not any more.

Pickleball Court Drag to orbit

The court is laid out to the regulation 44 × 20 ft, with a seven-foot non-volley zone — "the kitchen" — on both sides of the net. The surface is acrylic over cushioned base, the same family of surfaces you find at metropolitan clubs, which makes the ball bounce predictable and the knees grateful.

First pickleball court in Srikakulam
Regulation 44 × 20 ft layout
Cushioned acrylic surface
Floodlit for evening play

"Three weeks in, and the waitlist for a slot already runs into the evening." — Local resident, opening week

04 Sport · Youth

A box for the city's twenty-somethings.

Box cricket has done for tier-2 India what futsal did for Brazil — given the after-work crowd a way to play in 40 minutes flat. The park's box has drawn the heaviest weekend footfall so far.

Box Cricket Tap to orbit

Caged on all four sides with a steel-and-netting frame, the box keeps the ball in and the spectators safe. Astroturf inside, tape-ball or tennis-ball cricket only — no leather, no broken windows in the apartments next door.

Fully caged steel-and-net frame
Astroturf playing surface
Six-a-side format
Booking by the hour

05 Sport · Doubles

Two shuttle courts, lit for the after-office hour.

Badminton remains India's quiet workhorse sport. Two outdoor courts have been built into the park's eastern flank, with windbreak hedging on the south to keep the bird from drifting on its serve.

Shuttle Courts Drag to orbit

The pair are laid out side-by-side on a synthetic mat surface — softer on knees than the older concrete municipal courts. Posts are powder-coated; nets are tournament grade. Bring your own rackets.

Two adjacent courts
Synthetic mat surface
Tournament-grade nets
Floodlit, with hedge windbreak

06 Family

A children's play area that doesn't apologise for being public.

The play equipment here is the kind you'd otherwise find inside a gated community — slides on EPDM rubber-mat flooring, climbing frames in powder-coated steel, swings rated to commercial load.

Play Area Pinch to zoom

The flooring is the detail residents notice first. EPDM rubber matting, poured in place, in tricolour bands radiating from the central climbing tower. It cushions falls and drains during the monsoon. The equipment vendor is the same one supplying high-end private layouts in Vizag.

EPDM rubber-mat flooring
Commercial-grade equipment
Ages 3–12 zones, separated
Sightlines from the outdoor gym

07 Fitness

An outdoor gym with one eye on the children.

Placed deliberately within line of sight of the play area, the outdoor gym lets parents get a workout in while keeping an eye on the kids — a design choice that residents called out unprompted in the first week.

Outdoor Gym Drag to orbit

Twelve open-air stations — elliptical, leg press, chest press, surfboard, pull-up bars, ab benches. Powder-coated steel, body-weight resistance, weather-sealed bearings. No subscription, no waiting list.

12 fitness stations
Sightline to the play area
Weather-sealed bearings
Body-weight resistance

09 Gathering

An open theatre for sunrise yoga and Sunday films.

The amphitheatre at the park's western edge is the most patient piece of architecture here. By day it holds yoga; by evening, civic meetings; on weekends, screen nights.

Open Theatre Drag to orbit

Tiered stone benches step down to a flat performance circle. A retractable screen and power points along the rear wall make it ready for film nights without permanent AV clutter. Acoustically it's open enough for music, tight enough for speech.

Tiered stone seating
Retractable screen mount
Yoga · Films · Gatherings
Mains power along rear wall

10 Pause

A Kargil-themed coffee shop.

A small, deliberate cafe takes the patriotic theme indoors — fatigues-green walls, framed photographs of the war, a menu that names its drinks after operations and peaks.

Kargil Cafe Tap to orbit

The cafe is the only paid space in an otherwise free park, and that's intentional — it gives the visitor a reason to linger after the walk through the memorial without adding to the city's overpriced cafe count.

Wartime-photograph wall
Coffee · Snacks · Light meals
Indoor and verandah seating
Open till park closing

11 Infrastructure

Lights that switch themselves off the grid.

The street poles look ordinary. They aren't. Each is a hybrid solar pole — solar by default, mains only when the sun fails. Over a year, the park's lighting bill should come close to zero.

Hybrid Solar Pole Pinch to inspect

A photovoltaic panel tops each pole; a lithium battery cell sits in the base. On overcast or rainy evenings, a sensor cuts the pole over to grid power so the path never goes dark. The fixtures themselves are warm-white LED, kept under glare cones to protect night vision near the memorial.

Solar by default, mains backup
Battery storage at base
Warm-white LED, glare-shielded
Designed for monsoon switchover

12 Landscape

And one expensive topiary, on purpose.

Most of the planting is sensible — native shade trees, salt-tolerant shrubs, hardy bermuda lawn. But the entrance plaza holds one extravagance: a sculpted topiary tree of the kind you'd expect in a luxury hotel lobby. It is, residents agree, the one piece of showmanship the park earns.

Topiary Drag to orbit

Around the topiary, the rest of the planting does the quiet work: shaded resting alcoves under flowering trees, low maintenance ground cover, and a walking loop edged in dwarf hedges. The expensive tree is the showpiece; the unshowy hedge is why the showpiece works.

Sculpted entrance topiary
Shaded resting alcoves
Native, monsoon-hardy planting
Walking loop around the perimeter

The peaks were theirs. The park is ours.