Thane to get 21 new theme parks as New Year gift

Thane: There is a reason for Thanekars to rejoice as the municipal corporation is all set to gift them with new theme parks. The civic body is planning to build almost 21 theme parks across the city. Out of these, seven are nearly completed, six of them will be open for people by March 2018.

“We have decided to complete the work on the Bollywood Park, Old Thane New Thane Park, Angel’s Paradise, Dragon Park, Kalwa Parsik Jogger’s Park, Children’s Traffic Park and Siddhivinayak Park in 2018. Apart from the Children’s Traffic Park all other theme parks are funded by the corporation itself,” a civic officer informed.

The corporation had earlier planned to make the Bollywood Theme Park and the Old Thane New Thane Park on Built-Operate-and-Transfer basis, however, due to lack of response from any agency, these two parks will also be funded by the corporation. The officer added, “The budget of all the remaining parks together is Rs. 42.53 crores. The Traffic Park will be constructed through transferable development right (TDR). The theme parks will come up in areas like 12 Bunglows Kopri, Lakmi Park in Vartak Nagar, Kavesar, Parsik Nagar, Patlipada and Runwal Plaza near Vartak Nagar.”

Thane has a rich geography with creek, lakes and gardens. It is also popularly known as a Green City. However, the city lacks open spaces or hangouts where people can spend their weekends with family. “Apart from the Siddhivinayak Park, the work on all the other parks is more than 50 percent completed. The Old Thane New Thane Park is ready we are waiting to set an opening date. The decision whether to keep an entry fee at any of these parks is still not taken.”

There will be Bollywood Park at Vartaknagar that will have popular sets of Bollywood movies. Also it will also have statues of actors. The corporation is planning to set up a 4D theatre with a 40 seating capacity.

Children’s Traffic Park at Kavesar will have the awareness projects of traffic department displayed here. There will be tutorials on driving for children and also for adults. A virtual training room will also coach people how to drive two and three wheelers. An adult driving training track will be created which will enable people to learn driving. Moreover, RTO can also conduct special learning license drive in this park.

The Old Thane New Thane Park at Patlipada will have the glimpse of all popular landmarks of Thane in one place. Also, it will have a toy train as a remembrance of the first train that ran between CST and Thane stations.

Angle’s Paradise Park in Kopri will be developed on existing jogging park. The Paradise Theme Park will have angel statues. There are few more theme parks that are gearing up to attract the visitors and the citizens will have more green places to spend the weekends and evenings.

The city at present have couple of theme park which are poorly maintained. There are 46 gardens and 11 children’s park. 3 picnic spots, 9 grounds, 16 road islands and 3 boat clubs. In 2006, one of the biggest garden Mulla Baug was inaugurated. But later it lost the charm due to poor maintenance. The garden at Kalwa Saket also in poor condition.