MUMBAI: Almost a year after shutting its gates to visitors, the Veermata Jijabai Bhosale (VJB) Udyan and Zoo, popularly known as Byculla zoo, is likely to start operations from February 15.
The popular tourist spot had closed gates on March 15 last year amidst the Covid-19 outbreak as large gatherings of people were being restricted.
As the gardens and zoo reopens, visitors for the first time will also get a glimpse of the two Royal Bengal tigers named Shakti and Karishma, who were brought from Siddharth Garden and Zoo in Maharashtra's Aurangabad city last February and kept in quarantine.
They were to be put out on public viewing on March 25, last year but the zoo shut doors a week before the same.
The authorities at the zoo have created a specialized underwater viewing facility for visitors to get a close glimpse of the tigers.
A senior civic official said that an official proposal to reopen the zoo has been tabled before the BMC chief.
"We plan to reopen the zoo taking into consideration all the Covid-19 precautionary measures namely social distancing to be maintained, sanitizers to be placed at various spots within the premises and specific dustbins for disposal of masks and sanitizers as maybe required by the visitors," said the official adding that the zoo on a regular day has 5,000-6,000 visitors and on weekends crowds are seen going up to 15,000 as well.
However, in the current scenario, authorities have said that in case crowds within the zoo premises rise, they would shut the gates for a while and open only once the crowds within reduce.
The bird aviary which has a walk through within is expected to remain shut.
With the zoo being shut for a year now, almost all authorities said that there has been a loss of Rs 5 crore.
A person wanting to visit the zoo has to shell out Rs 50 currently per visit while children are charged Rs 25.
The facility is also largely visited by groups of students who are brought for school picnics.
Recently, the zoo authorities organised a virtual picnic for the students of Saraswati Vidyalaya High School in Thane where they as well as their parents could got a glimpse of the entire zoo online.