Expecting to hit the record in number of visitors this financial year is Indira Gandhi Zoological park. Having introduced Visakhapatnam to more exotic animal species, animal adoption programs and educational programs for school and colleges, the visitors are flocking in large numbers.
Considering these factors, zoo is most likely to have around 9 lakh visitors by the end of this financial year which will be the highest since its inception. The addition of giraffes, ring tailed lemur and chimpanzees has increased the number of visitors. As a result the revenue target for the year world be Rs 3 crores as per B Vijay Kumar, curator of the park.
The highest number of visitors recorded till date is 8.2 lakhs, in the year 2008-08. However due to the devastating cyclone, HudHud in October 2013 has reduced its visitors to 5.43 lakh. But after its recovery in a very less time the visitors have increased most of which are students from 280 schools who participated in various awareness programmes and also many corporate firms which participated in the zoo animal adoption programs.
As a result to this tremendous increase in the visitors, the Visakhapatnam zoo park is planning to provide free Wi-Fi facilities for all its visitors and is most likely to introduce its first app in Android which has been developed by the students of GITAM university. Taking eco-friendly steps, this year 20 more battery 13-seater vehicles will be added.
