Battery-operated vehicles inside Nandankanan. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, Feb. 25: Wildlife, like at all zoological gardens, is a big draw at Nandankanan, but the forest department also wants tourist footfalls to increase in the green zone of the zoo.

To attract more tourists, the forest department is planning to introduce a bus service to ferry passengers to Nandankanan’s botanical garden, which is spread over 75 hectares.

“Most of the tourists visiting the zoo are not able to visit the botanical garden. This is why we are planning to introduce a bus service for tourists. The buses will take them into the garden for sight-seeing,” said forest and environment secretary R.K. Sharma.

The garden includes several tourist attractions. It houses the recently opened butterfly park, a rosarium with a collection of 1,000 rose plants of 55 varieties, a medicinal garden with 200 species of plants and an orchid house that has more than 1,000 plants of 57 varieties. Besides, the area also has the Mughal Garden, which is home to both seasonal and perennial flowering plants.

However, the vast area of the garden often creates problems for tourists, especially those coming from other states. Local tourist can take a trip of the garden on two-wheelers, but the bus service is being planned keeping in mind tourists who come from far-off places.

“It is very difficult to walk and visit all the attractions inside the park. Moreover, the hilly roads in the garden makes it even more difficult for the pedestrians,” said Jiban Jyoti Dwibedi, a visitor.

The zoo officials had introduced battery-operated vehicles for tourists, especially elderly ones, who find it difficult to walk in the zoo. At present, five such vehicles operate within the zoo. Besides, tourists are taken to various safaris on mini-buses.

“We are not considering battery-operated vehicles for the botanical garden because their speeds are less. So, we are planning to introduce mini-buses to ferry passengers inside the garden,” said a forest department official.

The forest officials are also planning to come up with a detailed plan to attract more tourists to the garden. Statistics revealed that tourist inflow to the garden was very less as compared to the number of tourists visiting the zoo. While more than 29 lakh visitors had visited the zoo in 2012-13, only 1.1 lakh visited the botanical garden during the same period.

“The botanical garden has tremendous potential to attract tourists. Besides, the garden would also act as a medium for awareness regarding plant conservation. So, we will initiate a number of new measures to attract more tourists,” said another forest official.