Students do their bit to revive park glory

A group of students has suggested some easy-to-implement guidelines to make Sultanpur National Park in Gurgaon more tourist-friendly without disturbing the ecosystem of the surrounding area.

The group, comprising 30 students, took up this task aiming at increasing the tourism quotient of Gurgaon and making it more attractive to prospective visitors, something that the Haryana tourism department has also been working on.

The students’ final comprehensive report will be submitted to the department by the end of June.

The students identified the problem areas related to tourism in the national park and came up with ways to increase footfall. Some of the major problems included lack of signage to reach the place, absence of security checks of tourists and a very nominal entrance fee.

“Reaching the place itself is very difficult as there is hardly any public transport leading up to the national park. Even after you reach the place, there aren’t enough security checks for the tourists and no guides to help visitors,” said Rajat Raghav, a BBA student.

According to the group, the other problems bugging the national park are no sitting or resting places for children and senior citizens, a mostly dysfunctional information desk, no binoculars for tourists and lack of an effective tourist destination marketing strategy.

“Since Sultanpur was a bird sanctuary earlier, birds are the major attraction here but there are no binoculars provided for bird-watching,” said Hardik Mehta, another student.

The students conducted a SWOT analysis and survey, and came up with recommendations, including starting bus or car services from the metro station to the site, improving cleanliness inside the park and putting adequate number of dustbins wherever required.

The report also suggests that stalls selling mineral water and snacks be put up near the shop inside the national park, binoculars be made available to the visitors, electronic record of visitors be maintained and the website be kept updated.

The students participating in the project belonged to different streams at Ansal University.