The Curator is ‘optimistic’ to regain its glory, but the reality states something else.
By Arghyadeep Dutta
On a Sunday, Sangita, with her four-year-old daughter Sree, visited the government aquarium at Cubbon Park. The gloomy environment and poorly maintained site brought down the enjoyment and enthusiasm level to explore other places, accoding to them.
They said that, the experience was horrible as there was very little light, the steel rods of the fence around the aquarium were lying on the ground, the paint of the ceiling chips went offand it developed a crack. Some places have poorly done patchwork on the ceiling without any paint, there are spiderwebs visible at different places of the and even the fans were not working.
“I think the aquarium should be soon renovated and maintained. Then only the visitors will visit this place and enjoy the fishes,” said Sangita.
On an average, daily 30 to 40 visitors visit this 36-year-old aquarium, which is at Kasturba Road beside Cubbon Park. The government aquarium has no official website,and thus, third party websites come into play to provide inaccurate data about this place.
Rekha, the Curator of the Aquarium, said, “We are trying to maintain it with whatever we have. It was last renovated in 2011. We do not have a life-supporting system in the tanks, and we have to manually change the waters. The government has not allocated the funds yet, but I am optimistic that we can make this place good enough to attract more tourists.”
“Government should look into it. If this is the way an aquarium operates, then it is a shame for all the Bangaloreans,” said Anil Bhaskaran, an Urban Planner.
