The Sri Kotla Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy Botanical Garden, Night Safari and Eco-Park and Bird Park is being planned at the Kothaguda Reserve Forests in Hyderabad as an eco-tourism project. The project was approved in 2004.
The project is being developed by private companies that have been awarded contracts by the Andhra Pradesh Forest Development Corporation, the nodal agency in the state to execute eco-tourism initiatives.
In a letter to Andhra Pradesh CM Kiran Kumar Reddy on Thursday, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh wrote that his ministry was “dismayed to learn that...the project proponents have actually planned to construct huge concrete structures such as a large hotel with 300 to 400 rooms, a convention centre with a seating capacity of 2,500 people and a multiplex having a dozen screens with a multi-level parking lot for about 5,000 vehicles, which will be totally unacceptable in a forest area". Read the full report here.
Source: Amitabh Sinha, Indian Express, New Delhi.
