South India's first penguin park at Mysuru's Karanji Lake
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Bengaluru: In a first for South India, Mysuru is all set to have a state-of-the-art penguin park at Karanji Lake. Providing a fresh lease of life to the famed aquarium project at the waterbody, which was stuck in limbo for over a decade, the govt Thursday approved a proposal to convert the half-built facility at the lake into a penguin park under public-private-partnership (PPP) model.
At the Zoo Authority of Karnataka (ZAK) board meeting, forest minister Eshwar Khandre approved the proposal — a first in south India and the third such facility in the country after Mumbai and Ahmedabad. "Based on experts' opinion and recommendations, we decided to convert the ongoing aquarium project into a penguin park facility. I asked officials to prepare a detailed project report and submit a proposal at the earliest," Khandre said after the board meeting.
Senior forest department officials told TOI the project to build a world-class aquarium was in progress since 2010-11. Half of the structure was built by Mysuru City Corporation at a cost of over Rs 4 crore and handed over to ZAK in 2018. Thereafter, ZAK's multiple efforts to revive the project met with no response from the govt owing to Covid-19 pandemic.
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In the meantime, the tourism department came up with Rs 18-crore project to develop Karanji Lake nature park, linking both the zoo and lake.
However, the proposal did not go well with ZAK as it violated guidelines set by Central Zoo Authority (CZA).
Artificial cooling effects
As penguins — flightless aquatic birds — are found only in cold climatic conditions, the facility at Karanji Lake will have special micro-climatic conditions recreated to suit their original habitat. "We have to create artificial cooling effects inside the facility to maintain water and ambience temperature.
Currently, only Mumbai and Ahmedabad have penguins under micro-climatic conditions. The facility at Mysuru will have facilities on similar lines but in an advanced stage," said Sunil Panwar, member-secretary, ZAK.
Forest department sources said the cost of creating a penguin park may require an investment of Rs 30-40 crore, considering the temperature needs to be below zero degrees and that has to be created mechanically. "This requires round-the-clock power supply to power the freezers and air conditioners which ensure cold climatic conditions," said a retired forest official who previously served at ZAK. The govt is considering getting at least 4 to 5 pairs of penguins initially.
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