Manas National Park. File picture

Jorhat, June 22: It’s a shot in the arms for Manas National Park. With the removal of the “in danger” tag from the World Heritage Site, the authorities are getting ready to prepare a road map to develop the wildlife sanctuary as a major tourist destination.

“We have a long road ahead. With the national park back on the world heritage site list, the flow of tourists would be much more like that of Kaziranga National Park. We have to build on the infrastructure on the lines of Kaziranga,” the field director of Manas, A. Sargayari, told The Telegraph.

Manas and Kaziranga are the two national parks in the state listed as World Heritage Sites by Unesco. While more than 80,000 tourists visit Kaziranga National Park annually, only 2,000 visitors on an average have been visiting Manas in the last few years.

This is basically because of the poor infrastructure and the massive destruction that Manas had witnessed during the peak of Bodo militancy.

Manas wildlife sanctuary, which is also a national park, a tiger reserve, an elephant and a biosphere reserve, was listed as a World Heritage site in 1985. However, in 1992, it was declared a World Heritage site in danger because of severe damages to the ecosystem during the peak of Bodo militancy in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Sargayari said with the “in danger” tag removed, it would be much easier for the authorities now to approach the international funding agencies to help develop the infrastructure.

The forest official said the authorities were in touch with various NGOs engaged in Manas to work out strategies to develop the infrastructure of the national park.

He, however, said the park authorities would be extra careful not to cause any harm to the eco-system in a bid to attract more tourists, as has been witnessed in Kaziranga in recent times.

“We must be careful not to exert pressure on the eco-system of the national park by attracting too many tourists. We will make sure to have restrictions on the flow of tourists to Manas,” he said.

It is not only the park authorities who have started planning big for Manas in the days to come. Several NGOs, which have been working tirelessly for restoring the past glory of the national park located on the Indo-Bhutan border, are also dreaming big. “With the danger tag gone from Manas, it will receive international attention now resulting in and more tourists visiting the national park. This will have us motivate and engage more local youths to work for the development of Manas,” Partha Das, an office-bearer of Manas Maozigendri Eco-tourism Society, a NGO working in the national park, said.

The society, the members of which include ex-militants, former poachers and student activists, have been working on various projects to restore the past glory of Manas for over a decade now.