Byculla Zoo revamp plan rejected again

The Mumbai Heritage Conservation committee (MHCC) rejected the second revised plan for renovation of Veermata Jijabai Udyan and the zoo submitted by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

One of the proposals put forward by the BMC was to allow people inside animal cages at the Byculla zoo on weekends when animals are in the holding cages. But the MHCC rejected the proposal and also asked the civic body not to allow any trees inside the new animal enclosures.

The committee termed the proposal “funny” and asked the BMC to maintain the number of animals in the zoo. The plan to incorporate 1,100 trees — out of total 3,213 trees — into the animal enclosures also came in for sharp criticism by the MHCC.

The BMC has undertaken an ambitious Rs600-crore makeover plan of the botanical garden and zoo. Thailand-based HKS Designer and Consultants International have designed the plan which proposes to get animals from Africa, Southeast Asia and Australia and build an underground car park.

In May 2010, the MHCC rejected the BMC’s zoo modernisation plan and asked it to improve the condition of existing animal enclosures and preserve the botanical garden. Later, in the revised plan, additional municipal commissioner Assem Gupta proposed that botany students be allowed inside the botanical garden when the animals are in their holding cages during the weekly closure of the zoo.

When asked, MHCC chief Dinesh Afzalpurkar refused to divulge anything about the decision taken in the meeting. However, he said the final draft of the meeting was ready and would be submitted to the civic body within a couple of days.