Thousand-acre theme park to come up in Chittoor

Source: The Hindu

The forest officials have mooted to ground the City Park theme on about one thousand hectares on Chittoor outskirts, part of which is currently used as deer park. This project is part of the State-wide plan, which covers as many as 13 places.

In Chittoor district, Chittoor and Tirupati are the two places to be covered under the City Park scheme.

The Chittoor forest is spread over one thousand acres, which is further linked to reserve forest towards Tamil Nadu. At present, this part has a walkers track and a deer park. Highlight of the area is that it has a luxuriant presence of red sanders covering over 75 per cent of the area.

Divisional Forest Officer (Chittoor-East) K. Venkataswamy told The Hindu that the existing forest belt close to Chittoor town is like "lungs" to the local people. "We will develop the area as City Park, with superb facilities like meditation center, children park, holiday resorts, canteens, environmental education center, exhibition center and watch tower. An amount of Rs. 3 crore would be spent in phases. At present, we are grounding works worth Rs.80 lakh," he said.

A compound wall would be constructed around the park for a distance of over 5-km. The official said that the services of meditation masters and yoga teachers would be utilised for the visitors coming to the park. "Currently, visitors are allowed only through the jogging track. In a phased manner, the visitors would be allowed deep inside the forest," he said.

The City Park concept includes wall painting of rare species, including civet cats, slender loris, and certain rare birds. "Instead of using figures of regular wildlife species, this concept will introduce new and lesser known flora and fauna to the public, particularly to impress children," the DFO said.

Mr. Venkataswamy said an aviary would also be coming up in the City Park. "We will finalise the action plan regarding the bird species to be housed in it," he said.