Post News Network
Bhanjanagar, August 4: Process to hand over land for the proposed deer park at Biju Patnaik Children’s Park here in Ganjam district began Tuesday. It was proposed to throw open the park for public January 1, 2016.
According to official sources, conversion and site selection of the land identified for the park has been completed. It will be followed by public hearing after which the forest department will prepare a final report by Friday and sent it to Central Zoo Authority (CZA).
A CZA team will visit the site and give its nod after inspecting it. Other process will start after getting its consent.
The park will be set up on five hectare of land, which will house office of the forest department and postmortem room. The park will also have drinking water facility and road communication. Funds to the tune of `1.5 crore will be spent for the park.
In the initial stage, 10 deer will be brought from Kuanria deer park under Dasapalla forest range in Nayagarh district. Later, steps will be taken for their breeding to increase their population. The footfall of visitors to the park will increase after the deer park is set up which will result in revenue generation, the official sources added.
Earlier, forest and environment minister Bikram Keshari Arukh visited the proposed park site twice and directed the departmental authorities to initiate steps to hand over the land for the deer park. Later, principal chief conservator of forests S S Srivastav and senior forest officials also visited the site and expressed satisfaction over it.
According to sources, the process for setting up the deer park is being delayed due to the delay in handing over the land to the forest department.
A team of officials including south Ghumusar divisional forest officer Ramasami P, tehsildar Sambit Kumar Rout, assistant conservator of forests Ramesh Pradhan, central forest range officer Sharat Kumar Mishra, Mujagad Ranger Sudarshan Badi, forester Babul Sethy and water resources department officials visited the land identified for the park Tuesday.
