At last, the quaint VOC Zoological Garden near Nehru Stadium is finally going to get a complete face lift as Coimbatore Corporation has put up a formal proposal to the Central Zoo Authority seeking permission to carry on the requisite renovations to rejuvenate the park and the zoo.
A meeting in this regard was convened at the Corporation office to discuss on the sidelines of the proposal and to get suggestions from the officials of forest, animal husbandry and veterinary department.
CCMC, Special Officer, Vijayakarthikeyan stated that 'VOC park is one of the all-time and most sought after place by the people of this city. We have planned to renovate the zoo completely, as it's outmoded. The first round of preliminary design proposal has already been approved. And now, we have forwarded a detailed secondary proposal to the Central Zoo Authority (CZA) stating the process and budgets required for executing the plan.
Once the approvals are through, the same would be discussed with the Commissioner of Municipal Administration and a complete detailed project report (DPR) would be drafted henceforth.
Cyril Rufus, design architect and consultant also briefed on the overall aesthetics, execution, feasibility, compliance of CZA specifications and time frame required to execute the project to the officials. As each animal/bird/reptile would require it's own space and specs, meticulous planning is very crucial. The total area of the zoo and the adjoining park could encompass to 11 acres.
District Forest Officer, Ramasubramaniam, Veterinary Officer, Dr. Manoharan, Deputy Director of Animal husbandry maintenance department, Perumalsamy, District Welfare Officer, Santoshkumar, Town Planning Officer, Rajendran, Deputy Corporation Commissioner, Gandhimathi and other officials from CCMC were present during the discussion session.