Delhi zoo to open with Covid-19 precautions

"We opened the website ticket sale at 8am on Wednesday. Around 5pm, there were over 50 bookings," Delhi zoo director Ramesh Kumar Pandey said.

The National Zoological Park will open to the public on Thursday, after a gap of over a year, and operate in two shifts to prevent crowding, officials familiar with the matter said.

The Delhi zoo was shut for visitors on March 18 last year, a week before the nationwide lockdown that lasted 68 days was imposed. (PTI)

Ramesh Kumar Pandey, director, Delhi zoo, said, “The entire premises will be completely sanitised before it is opened in the morning. We will operate in two shifts; the first shift will be from 8 am to noon and the second shift will be from 1 pm to 5 pm. Between noon and 1 pm, we will close the zoo for sanitisation to adhere to the coronavirus protocols.”

The Delhi zoo was shut for visitors on March 18 last year, a week before the nationwide lockdown that lasted 68 days was imposed. Although most services gradually resumed in the last few months, plans to get visitors back to the zoo were hit by cases of avian flu earlier this year.

The first case of bird flu was reported from the zoo on January 15, when a sample from a brown fish owl that was found dead in its enclosure tested positive. Seven more samples collected from the zoo premises also tested positive over the next few weeks.

The Delhi zoo is one of the Capital’s most popular tourist spaces, receiving 15,000-20,000 visitors on weekdays before the pandemic. Zoo officials said that the footfall went up to 30,000-35,000 during the weekends and national holidays.

Pandey said that to ensure there is no crowding inside or outside the zoo, the administration decided that not more than 1,500 people will be allowed on the premises at a time. Manual ticketing has been completely stopped and visitors will have to pre-book their tickets online from the official website of the Delhi zoo, nzpnewdelhi.gov.in. To minimise physical exchange, the Delhi zoo will also provide digitised maps and brochures to help visitors navigate.

“To ensure that the number of people coming into the zoo is controlled, we opened the website for ticket sale at 8 am on Wednesday, 24 hours before entry. Around 5 pm on Wednesday, we had over 50 bookings,” Pandey said.

The cost of entry has increased from ₹40 to ₹80 for adults and from ₹20 to ₹40 for children aged 5-12 years and senior citizens. Officials said that the hike in prices was not related to the pandemic and a proposal was already in the works as the fee was not revised for seven years.

While visitors will have to strictly adhere to social distancing norms, they will be welcomed by many new residents, including sloth bears, striped hyenas, chinkara (Indian gazelle), ostrich and Indian boar.