MUMBAI: The BMC's Rs 480-crore plan to revamp the
Byculla zoo has hit another roadblock.
The biodiversity mapping report has concluded that most of the green cover of the zoo, which - which many consider a botanical garden first and a zoo second, would be adversely affected if the authorities go ahead with the modernization is done goes ahead according to the current master plan. Worse, the BMC-appointed botanist for the mapping, Dr Marselin Almeida, fears that the civic authority will not forward his report to the
Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee (MHCC), whose approval for the makeover is pending. However, a Central Zoo Authority (CZA) panel said it would take note of Almeida's report.
The
BMC promises that after the makeover, Veermata Jijabai Udyan will turn into a world-class zoo, but plans have been stuck for over a year as the MHCC have held decided to hold back the final approval as it is till it was not convinced that the character of the botanical garden would remain unchanged. Some of the worst fears of the MHCC now appear well-founded.
Almeida, with his team of six taxonomy students conducted a GPS mapping of the zoo's biodiversity. The report, to be submitted to the BMC this week, specifies the exact location of the zoo's flora and fauna.
"Going by the plan, a large number of trees will be affected as they will fall inside the enclosures. , going by the present plan. It is not clear how the BMC intends to protect these trees. If they build enclosures, closed structures they have to cut or remove trees but the BMC has promised the MHCC that not a single tree will be affected," It's a botanical garden first and then a zoo," said Almeida. He couldn't give an approximate figure for the number of trees that would be affected.
Almeida said, "The GPS satellite mapping gives the exact position of a tree. is, at the exact latitude and longitude. Now the BMC insists that the biodiversity mapping should be superimposed on the zoo's old map which of the zoo. The BMC's old map is not to scale and some markings are going outside it. Our plots are a reality and their map is fictitious and not done with accuracy by their architects." Almeida even doubt has expressed fears about whether that the if the biodiversity-mapping report will be submitted to the MHCC. "The BMC is telling us to give in writing that the report is incomplete. This report is accurate. The BMC is holding us responsible for their inadequacy in getting an accurate map. of the zoo. They are also withholding our payment for the survey. We have plotted all the trees and vegetation in the zoo. We doubt if this report will be submitted to the MHCC," he said.
Erach Bharucha, the director of Bharatiya Vidyapeeth Environment Institute, said "We will prepare a report based on that of Dr Almeida.After receiving several complaints, petitions from various groups and NGOs, that the green cover would be endangered due to the proposed modernization, CZA sent a team of experts-V B Savarkar, former director of the
Wildlife Institute of India, and Erach Bharucha, director of the Bharatiya Vidyapeeth Environment Institute -for an inquiry and an appraisal of the zoo in September. "We will prepare a report based on that of Dr Almeida," 's report says," said Bharucha.
Asked whether permission to the BMC for the zoo's makeover could be revoked, B K Gupta, evaluation and monitoring officer of CZA, said, "A letter is with There is a letter submitted to the BMC.When the master-plan was cleared, it was subject to conditions. Only after the CZA committee goes through the report submitted by experts, can be deliberated on by the CZA committee of the CZA and only then can we come to a decision."
Civic sources have said that the CZA, in all probability, could revoke its earlier permissions to modernize the zoo. "It's true that if the conditions are not fulfilled, the CZA can derecognize the zoo or revoke its earlier permissions for the project. Even if one condition isn't fulfilled, we have to justify it," said a senior official at the Byculla zoo.
