Mumbai: During the period of the Ganeshotsav, the Byculla's Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan has recorded 77,167 visitors. It added around Rs. 30 lakhs of revenue to the BMC's kitty.
The Ganeshotsav festival was celebrated for 10 long days starting on August 31. The schools in the city were closed for five days during this period. So the zoo was kept open on Wednesday when it is usually closed for cleaning purposes. On the first day of the festival, the zoo recorded more than 7,000 visitors.
The average weekday footfall is around 3,000, it swells to 9,000 - 10,000 on weekends during the monsoon. But during the festival, the zoo recorded 77,167 visitors from August 31 to September 11. While the last weekend recorded around 27,000 visitors. "The zoo has been changed a lot after the revamp. The new arrivals of animals are attracting people to the zoo," said the civic official.
The zoo has recorded the highest number of visitors up to 30,000 in May. Post-Covid-19 pandemic, the number of visitors to the zoo has doubled. It has recorded 17.22 lakhs of visitors in the last 10 months (November 2021 to August 2022) which earned a revenue of more than Rs. 6 crores.
The zoo generates income from charging entry fees to visitors which is set at Rs. 25 for children, Rs. 50 for adults and Rs.100 for a family of four. The number of visitors decreased during the monsoon.
