Pradyuman Park, Rajkot

Visiting Rajkot Zoological Park, popularly known as Pradyuman Park, is all set to get costlier as the standing committee of Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) approved a proposal seeking to double entry fee and user charges for the park on Friday.
At its weekly meeting, the standing committee gave green signal to the proposal forwarded by municipal commissioner. The approval means entry fee to the park for adult will go up from the existing Rs 10 to Rs20.
Likewise, a child below the age of 12 will be charged Rs 10 instead of the present Rs 5 to enter the park on the eastern outskirts and which is emerging as a major weekend destination near the city.
Entry fee and charges for elderly have also been doubled while user charges for electric cars have also been increased equally. On the other hand, charges for battery-operated cars have also been doubled. Charges for picking up children and adult and dropping them at a location were Rs 5 and Rs 10 respectively. But these have now been pushed up to Rs 10 and Rs 20 respectively. Hiring a car for one hour will now cost Rs 350 instead of the existing rate of Rs 250.

We have increased entry fee and user charges as an attempt to partially recover the maintenance cost of zoo. But at the same time, the hike is in accordance with rates fixed by state government. The increased fee and charges at Pradyuman Park will now be at par with those at Sakkar Baug Zoo in Junagadh and Kankaria zoo in Ahmedabad,” Nitin Bhardwaj, chairman of standing committee said after the meeting.
According to civic officials, Pradyuman Park registers average 1000 visitors on week-days and around 4,000 on weekends. The park had recorded 5.5 lakh visitors in the year ended on March 31, 2015 with the RMC collecting Rs 57 lakh from entry fee and user charges. However, maintaining the park costs the civic body around Rs 1.75 annually, officers further say.

The entry fee and other charges were fixed in year 2009-10 when the park was open to the public. At that time, there were only eight enclosures for animals. However, we have added 15 more enclosures since. The increase in charges will help further development of the park and better maintenance,” the chairman added.
The hiked rates of entry fee and charge are likely to be effective in next three weeks, officers said.

Majority of zoological parks in the country are run by government funds. But to make them sustainable, achieving no-profit-no-loss level is important. The increase in entry fee and user charges is a step in this direction, Atul Hirapara, superintendent of Rajkot Zoological Park, said.
The superintendent added that tenders had been floated to develop a zoological interpretation centre in the park and that the next phases of development will be birds section, reptile house and aquarium.