Kankaria’s non-functional planetarium to be modernised

After enjoying ride in a toy train, watching wild animals and birds at zoo and participating in various activities at Kids City, now get ready to enrich your knowledge of astronomy at Kankaria. The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) plans to modernise its nonfunctional, age-old planetarium.

The civic body plans to undertake the proposed modernisation project on a public private partnership (PPP) model. "The revenue-sharing model will encourage interested parties to invest in new technologies in the planetarium," said RK Sahu, superintendent of Kamla Nehru Zoo who is also in charge of the planetarium.

Till now, the civic body-run planetarium used to provide only basic information about solar system. However, the machine has been out of order for a long time and there was shortage of manpower leading to closure of the planetarium. "The person who used to run the machine was not qualified so he could provide only basic information and was not able to answer questions of visitors, mainly students," said Sahu.

Now, the civic body wants to rope in experts of astronomy who can not only satisfy curiosity of the visitors by answering their questions but also help generate interest in astronomy among visitors.

There is hardly any public planetarium in the city except the one at Kids City. However, there is no facility for observing stars at night. "A huge telescope can be set up at the planetarium once it is renovated, so that live astronomical events can be enjoyed," Sahu added.

A private party had approached the civic body with a proposal to develop the planetarium.