Warangal: The famous Kaleshwaram temple in Jayashankar Bhupalapalli district has another attraction to offer devotees and tourists. The district forest department has developed a park, ‘Mukti Vanam’, which houses parks where devotees can plant saplings and worship trees.
Inaugurating the park on Sunday, forest minister Jogu Ramanna said Mukti Vanam provided the right platform to bring devotion, entertainment and health at one place.
The 50-acre park houses gardens for individual nakshatras (stars), rasis, navagrahas, saptrarushis and a butterfly garden.
“With an intention to revive the degraded forests, the state government has introduced Telanganaku Haritha Haram programme which promotes growing of trees. Due to the increased pollution levels, there is an urgent need to develop urban lung spaces. Mukti Vanam is a very good initiative in that direction,” he said.
An amount of Rs 1.45 crore has been spent for the park which is intended to promote tourism in the district. Since a large number of devotees come to the Kaleshwara Mukteshwara Swamy temple, the park would cater to their needs of performing prayers which involve planting a certain sapling or praying to a specific tree according to their date of birth.
Finance minister Etala Rajender said there is a need for more parks like Mukti Vanam to come up in the state which promotes the participation of the public in planting more trees. He said the Mukti Vanam is unique serving a different purpose but at the same time promoting the planting of saplings and worship of trees. Apart from the designated parks, there is a children’s play area, resting areas, a wooden house, specially designed lotus ponds, and several cement constructions which were made to look like wooden structures were also constructed.
Local MLA Putta Madhu, said 10 more wooden houses would be constructed in the park to encourage tourists to come and stay close to nature.
Conservator of forests, M.J. Akbar, District Collector D. Amoy Kumar, DFO T. Ravi Kiran and others were present.
