Chennai: The renovated eco park at Chetpet here will soon get a solar powered aquarium and virtual reality centre at a cost of Rs 6.75 crore while the world’s longest beach — Marina — will house a Sailing and Rowing Academy, which will serve as centre of excellence, to train aspirants in boating competitions.
Announcing a slew of initiatives for the fisheries sector, Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa said the Academy would fulfill her party’s electoral promise of establishing water sport facilities. Making a statement in the Assembly under Rule 110 on Wednesday, she said the Chetpet waterbody, was renovated at a cost of '42 crore and an eco park was created. They were inaugurated by her earlier this year.
“The park received tremendous response from the public, besides recharging the ground water in the locality,” she said and added that in a bid to attract more visitors, the aquarium and Virtual Reality Centre will be started.
An electronic-library would be set up for Rs 2.15 crore in the Tamil Nadu Physical Education and Sports University, which was started during her previous regime, to help students and professors of the varsity to update themselves with latest happenings in the field.
She has now announced an artificial rock climbing to set up at Idayappatti in Madurai for Rs 30 lakh and recalled her earlier announcement to start a NCC training academy in Madurai. “Works on setting up of the National Cadet Corps Training Academy at Idayappatti are nearing completion,” she added.
Fish landing centres would be set up at five places — Pazhaverkadu (Tiruvallur district), Jambavanodai (Tiruvarur) and Karayur Theru (Thanjavur) at an outlay of Rs 9.77 crore with facilities including cold storage and hall for fish auction, to facilitate safe berthing of 1,379 country boats, fishing craft besides help fishermen safely land their catches.
