Lack of parking at Gopalpur zoo hassles tourists

Ravinder Sood

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Palampur, June 26

In the absence of parking facility at the Gopalpur zoo, most of the visitors park their vehicles on the Palampur-Dharamsala highway resulting in frequent traffic jams. The routine traffic jams have been causing a lot of inconvenience to tourists and commuters here.

Vikas Dhiman, DSP, Palampur, said he had deployed three traffic constables on the highway to streamline the traffic, but most of the visitors park their vehicles on the highway in the absence of proper parking place at the zoo, leading to regular traffic jams.

He said the zoo authorities had time and again been asked by the administration to create their own paid parking or expand the present parking to avoid inconvenience to tourists.

Long queues of vehicles can be seen on the highway daily near the zoo resulting in inconvenience to the daily commuters, passengers and tourists coming to the Kangra valley.

Despite availability of land with the Forest Department, the zoo management had failed to construct its own parking in the zoo complex. At present, the zoo had parking for only 50 vehicles, whereas the daily inflow of tourists to the zoo is over 3,000 because of the peak tourist season.

Frequent jams a routine affair 

• In the absence of parking facility at the Gopalpur zoo, most of the visitors park their vehicles on the Palampur-Dharamsala highway resulting in frequent traffic jams.
• The routine traffic jams have been causing a lot of inconvenience to tourists and commuters here. 
• Despite availability of land with the Forest Department, the zoo management had failed to construct its own parking in the zoo complex.