Butterfly park in Sector 52 lies is disrepair, conservation activities on hold

The city’s first butterfly park, commissioned by the forest department in Sector 52 two years ago, has ceased to operate and is currently in a state of disrepair.

The city’s first butterfly park, commissioned by the forest department in Sector 52 two years ago, has ceased to operate and is currently in a state of disrepair. Officials in the forest department confirmed that presently, there are no butterfly conservation activities underway at the park, which has been shut to public since March this year. Officials also said there are no immediate plans to revive the project.

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An HT team on Monday found that the park has been gated shut, while the approach road is being used as a parking lot for tempos by independent contractors. However, one can still enter the premises (which forms a small part of the forest department’s 19-acre nursery in Sector 52) from a second entrance, located about 500 metres on Ambedkar Road, just around the corner from Tau Devi Lal Biodiversity Park.

Inside, the butterfly park is a shade of its former self. The lack of upkeep was evident, and in multiple places, one can observe the withering remains of saplings planted by visitors. While the area remains forested, it is overrun with weeds and is not being actively maintained, according to staffers at the department nursery.

The butterfly gardens, bathrooms and picnic spots all bore a decrepit look. No butterflies could be spotted either, although, at the time of its launch two years ago, the park was reportedly home to 27 different species.

Originally conceived by the forest department in 2017, the butterfly park, named Thousand Shades Butterfly Park, was launched in collaboration with a city-based NGO on May 23, 2018, on the occasion of World Biodiversity Day. At the time, the department had spent nearly Rs 3 crore on setting up the park, including the cost of planting specific vegetation to attract butterflies and setting up indoor and outdoor conservatories for their breeding.

The park had one outdoor conservatory, aimed at conserving specific butterfly species, including the common emigrant, mottled emigrant, small gross-yellow, peacock pansy, lemon pansy, common pierrot, blue pansy and great eggfly. An indoor conservatory, specifically aimed at conserving the plain tiger butterfly, which is commonly seen in the region, had also been created, but is no longer operational.

Close to 150 different species of host plants — including lemon, bel, akawan, chakunda and harsingar trees — were planted in early 2018 to attract various butterfly species. In the first year of its operation, the park became a popular destination for students and picnickers, hosting educational tours and plantation drives for groups of schoolchildren. As plantation work was to be carried out for a period of five years, ending in 2022, visitors were encouraged to plant saplings to commemorate their time there.

Subash Yadav, a metropolitan green planner with the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority, and former district forest officer (DFO) with the state forest department, said that breeding activities at the park had stopped even earlier than March 2020.

“Sometime in 2019, we realised that the concessionaire had been violating our memorandum of understanding. Visitors to the park were being charged for entry, whereas the NGO was only allowed to raise money via CSR funding. They had also created a pukka road to enter the park, which is not allowed on forest land. The intention was to create a butterfly conservation centre to educate visitors, but the concessionaire was turning it a commercial undertaking,” said Yadav.

In fact, the district forest department in 2019 also prosecuted Sanjay Kaushik, the director of the NGO, Uthaan, for violations of the Wildlife Act. “The concessionaire had kept four grey partridges at the site in cages, which is against the law. There were also two emu birds and several rabbits that were kept there. This was nowhere permitted in our agreements. At the direction of the environmental court in Faridabad, the partridges were seized and then released in Sultanpur National Park,” said Yadav.

Probing these violations, an internal forest department committee in 2019 had recommended terminating the agreement with Uthaan. “At present, our MoU does not stand. Before we could terminate the agreement, we received a representation from the NGO saying they do not wish to continue as the concessionaire. Then, after lockdown, they stopped maintaining the park entirely,” said a senior forest department official, seeking anonymity.

The state forest department is yet to take a call on appointing a new concessionaire or running the park independently. “There is no decision on the cards yet,” said the official cited above.

Sanjay Kaushik, founder and director of the NGO Uthaan, refuted the forest department’s allegations, but did not specifically respond to each one, when asked. “All I can say is we are no longer maintaining the butterfly park. Uthaan has not been maintaining it since March this year.”

The presiding district forest officer, Jai Kumar, declined to comment on the issue.

Vasvi Tyagi, chief conservator of forests, could not be reached despite multiple attempts on Monday.