Hyderabad: A special team constituted by the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority has apparently drawn up the outlines for the proposed night safari on a 125-acre site at Kothwalguda.
A special team, after conducting a study tour, proposed that the night safari would have more than 2,000 animals from about 150 species ranging from the Indian rhinoceros and pangolin to tarsiers and Asian elephants.
The safari will also offer traditional tribal dances and other performances to highlight the culture of Telangana state. It would also have night “show” by the animals. The nocturnal park at the safari will have moats, which will look like streams, enable fishing cats and servals to put up a show in open areas.
Unlike the Singapore night safari, the proposed nocturnal park will have world class infrastructure with sophisticated trams and boats where visitors can dine. A senior HMDA official said that the proposed night safari would be more sophisticated than Singapore since the latter was constructed in 1994.
Highly placed sources said that the Kothawalguda site which had been earlier visited by Mr Bernard Harrison, principal partner (creativity and design), and Mr Alexandar Stingal, general manager (business operation) of Bernard Harssion & Friends Ltd., Singapore gave a positive report and claimed that it would be an ideal location for setting up the night safari.
As per the requirement of the state government, the Singapore tour has been preparing proposals for the night safari in the city. The government has asked the HMDA to conduct a feasibility test and submit them by December so that the government would seek necessary permissions from the Centre to ground the project by February prior to the Lok Sabha elections.
A senior HMDA official said that the Singapore experts had given a positive response and said that they would be ready with the designs during their next visit to Hyderabad. He said that the nocturnal park would also have a dining facility, where visitors could watch night shows.
He said that the HMDA, tourism department and urban forestry department would co-ordinate with the Singapore team. “As of now, the team has been constituted comprising of the urban forestry department and HMDA officials to conduct the feasibility to set up the nocturnal park. A separate team will be constituted to prepare the budget estimates,” the official said.
The HMDA official said that the preliminary cost estimates prepared during August was on par with the Hyderabad Metro Rail project. He hinted that it could be in the public-private partnership mode. The government would constitute a special purpose vehicle to fund the project. The official stressed that the HMDA had not called for any fresh tender to conduct the study. Since the process has begun prior to the dissolution of the State Assembly, it would not attract the Model Code of Conduct rules.
