The state government has scrapped its plan to relocate Alipore zoo to Sonarpur but has finalised a plan to create more space for the inmates by shifting some to a wetland park to be set up on the city’s southern suburb.

Senior officials, at a meeting chaired by chief secretary Ashok Mohan Chakrabarti on Tuesday, finalised the plan to set up a wetland ecological park at Bhagawanpur in Sonarpur, where the zoo was to be shifted, to decongest the Alipore compound.

The government had been working on a plan since 2003 to shift the zoo to a 500-acre plot in Sonarpur. But a slew of problems, including encroachments on the site, forced the government to shelve the plan.

The officials on Tuesday chose a middle path, deciding not to relocate the zoo but to shift some inmates to the wetland park proposed to come up on 170 acres.

“The park will help decongest the zoo, resulting in more space for the inmates. Apart from hippopotamuses, rhinos and crocodiles, the park will also provide shelter to birds like storks,” said forest secretary K.S. Rajendra Kumar.

A team led by Kumar, who attended Tuesday’s meeting, has surveyed the site for the wetland park.

Chakrabarti said the government would write to the Union forest and environment ministry for permission to go ahead with the plan.

The officials, however, refused to commit themselves to a deadline for the completion of the park.

“The park will be set up with minimum construction to ensure the ecology of the area is not disturbed,” said an official.