Bannerghatta Park all aflutter about facelift

Bannerghatta Park all aflutter about facelift
Deccan Herald

IT city Bangalore’s prime weekend outing - Bannerghatta Biological Park (BBP) - is all set to open a Butterfly Park.

Sources said Chief Minister H D Kumaaraswamy has invited Union Minister for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal to open the park, set up spending Rs 3.81 crore. It has a butterfly conservatory, audio visual facility and an exhibition hall. Rare varieties of butterflies can be seen at the park.

The park will serve as a central hub for coordinating research, training, education and rural livelihood using the resources (butterflies) of peninsular India.

Bigger zoo

Meanwhile, Bannerghatta park as a whole is getting a facelift under a Rs 10 crore project. Visiting the park, set up in 1971, will soon be a different experience. Anticipating heavy surge of visitors in the years ahead, in the wake of the city’s meteoric rise in population, the park is all set to be upgraded with many more ‘visitor-friendly’ facilities.

Animal safaris (lion and tiger), butterfly park, zoological garden, and animal rescue centre are part of the biological park. BBP park covers 355.85 hectares of reserve forest, 62.48 hectares of acquired private land and 118.17 hectares of government waste land handed over to the forest department. The total area is 545.50 hectares.

In phases

Though BBP is well-known in the international wildlife circuit, its infrastructure falls short of being anywhere close to global standards. When compared to Mysore Zoo which is much smaller in area, the visitors to the park are lesser in number as the zoo at Mysore attracts over 14 lakh visitors a year.

Heavy footfall

Over six to seven lakh people visit BBP on an annual basis.

“The park could attract many more visitors if suitable infrastructure is provided in accordance with modern concepts of zoo management. Therefore, a Rs 10 crore project is being taken up in three phases to upgrade the park to international standards,” said Zoo Authority of Karnataka (ZAK) Member Secretary and Conservator of Forests Suresh. Disclosing this to Deccan Herald, Mr Suresh said the first phase of the project (Rs 3 crore to be spent) will begin shortly as the PWD is reviewing the estimates prepared for the works.

A high-level committee comprising ZAK, BBP and forest officials has been constituted at Bangalore to finalise the facilities to make it “more educating and rewarding” for visitors to the park.

Upgradation

ZAK, whose headquarters is at Mysore, will co-ordinate with Central Zoo Authority of India (CZA) in executing the project. The park upgradation plan will be based on CZA guidelines. Despite having a collection of 1,100 animals, the zoo at BBP is located in a small area.

“The zoo will be expanded in another 25 acres of land, building state-of-the-art animal enclosures,” he said, adding that outdated animal houses will be razed. CZA and Karnataka Infrastructure Development Corporation (KUIDFC) are jointly funding the project.

The Ministry of Tourism has also supported the project.