Two proposals have been shortlisted for a ‘safari park’ in the Aravallis in Haryana, and the state government is likely to zero in on one of these design proposals next month, according to a senior official in the Haryana Tourism Department. This comes a little more than a year after the Tourism Department floated an ‘expression of interest’ inviting design proposals from agencies with expertise in designing or building and operating such facilities worldwide. The safari is proposed to come up on around 10,000 acres of land in the Aravallis in Gurgaon and Nuh. M D Sinha, Principal Secretary, Haryana Tourism Department, said, “We had shortlisted two companies in the first stage of the process, and both companies had submitted their proposals. They had wanted some extension of time since this is a challenging project and is likely to be the biggest such project in the world. They then submitted the proposals. We have assessed the proposals, made our recommendations, and now a committee headed by the Chief Minister and comprising senior officials of the tourism and forest departments is required to decide on it. The meeting to decide on it has been scheduled for July 4.” Two proposals were shortlisted out of five that were received. “We had said that joint consortiums are possible, and that one of the partners in the consortium must have operational experience in running such facilities in the world. These kinds of large-scale facilities don’t exist in India. We are talking about roughly 300 species, and each animal has its own habitat and food requirements. The shortlisted proposals are from consortiums, with international partners,” Sinha added. The safari will involve animals in enclosures. “It is a curated safari. International protocols prevent the mixing of wildlife and zoo populations. We are talking about zoo-bred populations,” Sinha said. “What we (tourism department) are giving is only the design and the project management services. If an oceanarium is being made, that will then be a different tender. We will end up having multiple units, and this is work that will continue for a long time. What we hope to do is open up one section every two years. Drone imaging and demarcation of land has already begun. If the tender is awarded, we will have a broad master plan in three months, and after that work will begin,” he added. Officials estimated that of the 10,000 acres that is being earmarked for it, the safari itself might take up a few hundred acres, and the rest of the area will be restored and rewilded as forest. In a press conference held in October last year, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had said that around 6,000 acres of the safari will be in Gurgaon and 4,000 acres in Nuh. A herpetarium, an enclosed space for birds, big cats, herbivores, an underwater world, nature trails, and visitor tourism zones are sections that are likely to be a part of the safari, Khattar had announced. “As you may know, a big area in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands is being deforested and the Union government has told Haryana that forest area may be created in our area and the compensatory allowance for it may be given to Haryana. It is with this that the (safari) project can be readied,” Khattar had said last year. Khattar was referring to the Great Nicobar Island project which includes an International Container Transshipment Terminal, a greenfield airport, and a township in the Great Nicobar Island, for which the stage-I forest clearance has been granted to divert 130.75 sq km of forest land. The forest clearance granted for the project states that compensatory afforestation may be done on non-notified forest land in Haryana. If areas in Haryana do not meet the norms for compensatory afforestation, areas may be identified in Madhya Pradesh or states adjoining the NCR. Earlier this year, environmentalists in Gurgaon, under the banner of Aravalli Bachao Citizens Movement, had written to the Haryana CM and Union Environment Minister asking for the project in its current form to be scrapped. Their communication, authored along with conservationists, had stated that construction activities and other structures that will be involved with the safari may destroy the eco-sensitive Aravalli region, which is a water recharge zone, wildlife habitat and barrier against desertification, and an area that is already degraded by mining and requires a plan for restoration and conservation.
