More than 1,600 visitors arrived at the National Zoological Park Thursday, on the first day of its reopening after a year under lockdown since the pandemic.
Delhi zoo director Ramesh Pandey said people arrived in two shifts lasting four hours each and a total of 483 tickets were sold, amounting to over Rs 1.18 lakh. He said the average number of visitors per day before the pandemic used to be between 4,000 to 10,000, depending on the days of the week. “The response from people was very good. They liked the facelift given to the entry points and other parts of the zoo. There were some initial glitches in terms of bookings, but it was smooth overall,” he said.
Pandey said to ensure Covid protocols are not broken, circles will be drawn on the ground for social distancing and more gates will be opened. The zoo director also said an assessment is being done of how captive animals reacted to seeing a large number of visitors after over a year.
“We will continue to let in visitors in two shifts through the day for now,” Pandey added.