The Brihanmumbai Mahanagar Palika, or the Municipal Corporation of Greater Bombay, has for the second time floated a tender to build a dome-shaped walk-through aquarium at the city zoo at Byculla, The Times of India newspaper reported recently.
The aquarium is proposed to be built at a cost of Rs65 crore directly opposite the penguin enclosure at the zoo, officially called Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan va Prani Sangrahalay but popularly known as Rani Baug after its original name, Victoria Gardens.
The newspaper reported that the aquarium with themed acrylic tunnels displaying coral and deep ocean environments will occupy 5,000 sq ft in the 50-acre botanical gardens and zoological park. The aim is to replicate the experience at modern aquaria abroad.
The aquarium will include a quarantine facility with a laboratory, life-support-system room and salt-mixing room. A special attraction for children will be pop-up windows offering a 360° view of aquatic life. A souvenir shop is also planned.
The municipal corporation had first invited a tender to set up the aquarium in 2022. That plan was scrapped as the Maharashtra government unveiled a plan to build an aquarium on Worli Sea Face. Then tourism minister Aaditya Thackeray proposed a tourist complex on Worli dairy land comprising an urban forest, an aquarium, a marine research centre, and an exhibition centre. But after the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government fell in June that year, the plan was scrapped and the land was returned to the dairy development department.
A senior municipal official told The Times of India that over 50 different species of fish would be housed in the new facility to ensure a diverse and captivating aquatic display.
Zoo history
Jijamata Udyan is a zoological park and botanical garden covering 50 acres in Byculla in the heart of Bombay. It is the oldest public garden in the city. In 1835, the British administration of the city granted a large plot of land in Sewri to the Agro Horticultural Society of Western India to set up a botanical garden, which came to be known as Victoria Gardens after Queen Victoria, who ascended the British throne in 1837.
That land parcel was later acquired for a European burial ground, which today houses the graves of some prominent personalities of the colonial era. In 1861, construction of a new botanical garden began on 33 acres of land in the Mount estate, Mazgaon (now included in Byculla), near the Victoria and Albert Museum, Bombay’s first museum built in 1855 in the grand Greco-Roman style and today known as the Dr Bhau Daji Laud Museum.
Flora from the Sewri garden were transferred to the new garden, which was formally opened to the public on November 19, 1862, by Lady Catherine Frere, wife of the governor of Bombay, Sir Bartle Frere, on 19 November 1862. The Agro Horticultural Society of Western India continued to maintain Victoria Gardens until 1873, when the society’s end led to the Bombay Municipal Corporation taking over the garden’s upkeep. In 1890 the garden was extended by 15 acres especially for setting up the zoo.
Besides the museum, the garden today also houses an equestrian statue in black marble of King Edward VII, which was originally installed near the University of Bombay, giving the area its name Kala Ghoda or Black Horse, and the David Sassoon clock tower.
