Hyderabad: Hyderabad’s Nehru Zoological Park (NZP) is considering the construction of a multi-level parking facility to address increasing footfall and vehicle parking challenges. Discussions are happening with a private company that is already working on a similar project near Kasu Brahmananda Reddy National Park (KBR).
The proposal is still in its early stages and is being evaluated for feasibility and cost-effectiveness. If approved, it will be submitted to the zoo’s internal board, which includes key officials such as the forest minister, principal secretary and head of the wildlife department.
The zoo’s existing parking facility has been upgraded to hold between 1,500 and 1,800 vehicles, 1,500 two-wheelers and up to 40 buses across roughly eight acres. Still, parking remains a major concern, especially on high-footfall days when visitor numbers exceed 24,000. On those days, the parking area gets very full and cars end up parking on the nearby roads.
Last Sunday, 1,728 vehicles arrived at the parking lot, including 737 bikes, 47 autos, 933 cars and jeeps, nine vans and two buses. Many vehicles were parked along the nearby flyover and by the compound walls, which caused traffic jams around the zoo.
Zoo officials clarified that the vehicles parked on the flyover were not part of any official parking arrangement. Dr Sunil S. Hiremath, director of NZP, explained that the congestion was partly due to a temporary traffic jam caused by a procession in connection with the Waqf Amendment Act that lasted about two hours. “Our parking was still open and operational. The flyover parking was not an official arrangement,” he said.
Traffic CI Karuna Kumar of Bahadurpura said the extra crowd on Sunday was because it was the weekend, schools were about to reopen and because of the procession. This also made parking difficult.
Venkat Rao, a forest section office official at NZP, said the procession and heavy visitor turnout slowed traffic near the gates from noon. “This doesn’t happen regularly. But last Sunday was unusual. We even instructed our staff to allow about 15 cars inside at a time after the initial jam, once space was freed up,” he added.
Besides parking, NZP has about 80 to 100 acres of land within its premises for animal enclosures, breeding and visitor facilities. Dr Hiremath shared plans to allocate additional space for breeding activities. Dr Sunil added, “Parking is becoming a stress point. We are planning multi-level parking to avoid wasting open space. This will help us multiply the capacity within the existing eight-acre parking zone.”
