Will seek support of Singapore for Tirupati zoo revamp: Speaker

Assembly Speaker and Chairman of the Legislative Committee on Wildlife and Environment Chintakayala Ayyanna Patrudu has announced that the expertise from Singapore will be sought, if necessary, to modernise the Sri Venkateswara Zoological Park (SVZP) in Tirupati.

As a team of experts from Singapore will be visiting the Visakhapatnam zoo soon, they will be engaged to provide ideas to modernise the Tirupati zoo.

The committee led by him visited the zoo on Thursday. The members visited the enclosures, inspected the facilities offered to the public and interacted with visiting tourists, the majority of whom were Tirumala-bound devotees.

At a review meeting held with the District Collector S. Venkateswar and Legislature General Secretary Prasanna Kumar Suryadevara, Mr. Patrudu hailed the zoo as the largest in Asia, spread across 3,100 acres. He said that the zoo’s development would require ₹6 crore, of which the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) would chip in with ₹3 crore and the district administration would have to bring in the remaining ₹3 crore. The legislators and the Members of Parliament would also be urged to allocated funds from available development grants at their disposal.

Mr. Patrudu expressed displeasure that a mere 4% of devotees were visiting the zoo, which is located at the foot of the Tirumala hills, and told the zoo administration to double the figure to 8% soon.

He said that the entertainment and adventure components should be improved, within the permissible limits, to attract visitors. He also directed the authorities to prepare plans to provide filtered drinking water facilities to the animals, as there were provisions to extend water from Kalyani dam up to the zoo.

The panel members MLAs Arani Srinivasulu (Tirupati), Pulivarthi Nani (Chandragiri), Gondu Shankar (Srikakulam), V. Narendra Varma (Bapatla), MLC P. Vikranth, Joint Collector R. Govinda Rao, Chief Conservators of Forest D. Nageswara Rao (wildlife), Y. Srinivasulu (Tirupati circle), B.N.N. Murthy (social forestry and zoo parks), District Forest Officer Y. Saibaba, District Revenue Officer G. Narasimhulu and state silviculturist M. Babitha were present.