HYDERABAD: Announcements by governments are always made on a grand note and similar was the scenario in 2012 when much hullabaloo was made as the Union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) announced that the country’s first National Biodiversity Museum would be set up in Hyderabad. This announcement was made during the 11th Conference of Parties on Convention on Biological Diversity, which the city had hosted, Six years later, as 25th anniversary of International Day for Biological Diversity(IBD) nears, which is celebrated on May 22 every year across the world, Hyderabad still awaits the promised biodiversity museum. The museum was supposed to come up at the Biodiversity Complex in Gachibowli.
Main hurdle
Speaking to officials of the environment department of Telangana government and the Telangana State Biodiversity Board (TSBDB), Express found out the main hurdle to the establishment of the biodiversity museum: lack of sufficient land by the state government for establishing the museum. The then Andhra Pradesh State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) had earmarked only 15 acres of land at Gachibowli for the biodiversity complex which was supposed to house a biodiversity park and a biodiversity museum. Of that, 5 acres was utilised for developing the biodiversity park, which is languishing in a poor state, and only 10 acres of the earmarked land is available for construction of biodiversity museum. According to TSBDB officials, 10 to 15 more acres of land was sought by the MoEF if the biodiversity museum was to be established.
A document released by the National Biodiversity Authority and the AP State Biodiversity Board in 2012 on the proposed biodiversity complex said, “The physical infrastructure of the museum building and the interpretive outdoor exposition is likely to span an area of 20 acres and the cost estimated is Rs 160 crore.” Officials of Creative Museum Designers, Kolkata, a wholly-owned company of the National Council of Science Museums, told Express that they had prepared a detailed project report on biodiversity museum long ago and submitted it to the MoEF. Formation of new Telangana state has not helped the matters as the Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (TSIIC) continues to safeguard the original 15 acres land but has not allocated any extra land for the museum.
Andhra joins the fray
As the Telangana government was dithering on allocating additional land, the Andhra Pradesh government issued a government order last year, allocating 25 acres of land in its new capital Amaravati for establishment of a national biodiversity museum, for which it is also in talks with the Zoological Society of India.
One can get an idea of the level of grandeur at which the biodiversity museum was planned in Hyderabad from the NBA document on biodiversity complex which says, “The museum, along with required infrastructure and facilities for visitors will be built over an area of around 17,000 square metres. After a detailed discussion with the technical experts committee, nine thematic galleries, each of an area of about 1,000 sq.mt., have been finalised.”