Vandalur zoo gears up for receiving visitors during Pongal

With less than 20 days remaining for Pongal festival, forest officials today convened a meeting to discuss arrangements to be made for handling the large number of visitors expected to visit Arignar Anna Zoological Park at Vandalur near here.
Officials from forest, police, water and drainage, transport, electricity, health and fire and rescue departments participated in the meeting, an official release said.
While the Water and Drainage department was requested to provide over four lakh litre of drinking water, adequate buses in all relevant routes were requested from the transport department, it said.
Vandalur zoo, the largest in Asia spread over 1,490 acre receives more than a lakh people every day during three to five days of Pongal celebrations every year.

A total of 1,08,186 people visited the zoological park during Pongal celebrations this year, officials said.
During 2011-12 and 2012-13, the zoo received 20,02,545 and 22,12,131 footfalls respectively, they said.