Bokaro, Jan. 10: Sprawling over an area of 127 acres and being home to more than 437 animals and birds, the Jawaharlal Nehru Park in Bokaro is one of the biggest zoos in the state.

But that’s not its only pride. Being branded as one of the best parks of eastern India recently by the central zoo authorities for its beautiful landscape and cleanliness has given a further boost to this already popular picnic-cum-educational centre, which has more than 75,000 trees and medicinal plants, besides a big boating lake.

The animals at the park include the Royal Bengal tiger, white tiger, lions, spotted deer, leopard, sambar, black buck, hippopotamus, hyena, monkeys, peacocks, civets, reptiles and various breeds of beautiful birds.

The zoological park opened to public on January 14, 1989, is being maintained by the Bokaro Steel plant and earns more than Rs 17 lakh per annum through various resources and spends about Rs 20 lakh on the maintenance of the park.

The ambience at the park is so created that the animals feel at home and it’s common to come across peacocks freely moving around oblivious to the admiring glances of visitors coming from far-off places like Purulia, Dhanbad, Koderma, Hazaribagh, Ramgarh and even Asansol.

Considered the perfect place not only for families on a picnic, but also for dating, the park has been much praised in the past by various well known personalities like Salim Ali (ornithologist) and A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the former President of India.

Already well known for its wild inmates, sources at the park revealed that the zoo authorities would soon fetch a pair of lion and tiger from Orissa and convert the zoo as a breeding ground for them.

Sources added that the authorities have also sought details from Coimbatore regarding plans of setting up a butterfly park, hoping to pick up useful tips from authorities running the butterfly park there.

Gautam Chakravarty, a senior officer at the zoo, told The Telegraph today that being positioned in the centre of the town and blessed with natural resources in abundance, this park has all the features needed to make it one of the best in the country. Chakravarty has also served at the Darjeeling zoo and the Jamshedpur zoo,

“Just wait for a few months more. With a little more assistance from the Bokaro Steel and more co-operation from people visiting the park, we can hope to make this zoo one of the best in the country. We need to make the visitors to the zoo a little more aware about how to deal with the wild inmates of the park,” he said.