Aurangabad, Nov 12:
The Siddharth Garden and Zoo of Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) got re-opened after 18 months today. There was a huge rush of citizens to visit the places since morning. A total of 1,400 visitors visited the places and the AMC earned a revenue of Rs 59,319 from them in the form of entry tickets.
The garden and the zoo was closed for visitors since March 2020. However, as the pandemic situation got eased, the AMC decided to re-open it from Friday. The garden was kept open from 8 am to 5 pm and the zoo from 9 am to 5 pm.
It is learnt that 1,035 adults and 378 minors visited on the first day. They include locals and domestic tourists. The Covid-19 protocol was maintained strictly on the campus. The AMC staff deployed at the entrance ensured that all the visitors are wearing masks and also checked the status of vaccine doses. The civic health team was conducting a Covid test upon visitors who had taken only one dose of vaccine.
It may be noted that there are more than 300 wildlife animals in the zoo. The main attractions are tiger, leopard, crocodile, Nilgais, deers, bears and birds. The visitors enjoyed moving around in the zoo.
The deputy commissioner Saurabh Joshi said, " The garden and the zoo were re-opened by adhering to all SOPs in place. There was a positive response from the visitors on the first day. The strength of visitors is likely to increase in the coming days. Hence I appeal to all the visitors to cooperate with us by following all the rules and Covid-19 protocols."