HIDCO, NKDA to ensure smooth entry and exit of visitors at Eco Park on Christmas, New Year

Kolkata: Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) and New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) have taken elaborate measures to ensure smooth entry and exit of the visitors at Eco Park on Christmas and New Year's Day.

In 2018, approximately 1.30 lakh people had visited the state's most attractive urban park on New Year's Day. The park stands on a land of 480-acre surrounded by a waterbody of 112-acre.

To maintain easy flow of traffic on Biswa Bangla Sarani and smooth entry and exit of the visitors, a series of meetings have taken place between the senior officials of HIDCO, NKDA, police and Disaster Management department.

The new attraction is the air-conditioned toy train. The train resembles the heritage toy train of Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (DHR). There is a replica of Ghoom railway station. In addition to the existing toy train, a new air-conditioned train has been added. A replica of Eiffel Tower is likely to be a star attraction as well. It may be mentioned that Eiffel tower in France is the most visited paid monument in the world.

The replica of the tower will be opened to public on December 25. The visitors can go up to the first floor and enjoy the beauty of the waterbody. The replicas of the seven wonders are a crowd puller and officials of HIDCO and NKDA felt that on Christmas and New Year's Day thousands of people will visit

the structures.

HIDCO has increased the number of ticket counters. Police have divided Eco park into 5 zones and adequate arrangements have been made to maintain peace. There will be two watch towers and six

police camps. Steps have been taken to avert traffic jam on Biswa Bangla Sarani. In the previous years, there was traffic jam on the main thoroughfare as thousands of people used to come on the street after the Park gets closed. Buses will be parked on the open ground beside Gate No 4 and as a result the visitors will not have to cross the road to catch buses. State Transport department will provide additional buses and will open five to six camps to assist the visitors.

The entire Kolkata gets decked up in the last week of the year. A canopy of lights will adorn the entire Park Street-Allen Park stretch.

This year, the special attraction of the festival will be the performances by buskers in and around Park Street & Camac Street crossing on the day of Christmas from 4 pm to 10 pm. They will be performing at designated places to spread the essence of the festival in the best possible way. "Kolkata is perhaps the only city in the world where Christmas is celebrated in such a grand and befitting manner," said Atri Bhattacharya, Principal Secretary of the state Tourism department.

It may be mentioned that the Christmas Festival at Park Street and its festive fervour draw a large number of foreign tourist as well and the state Tourism department is hopeful that the footfall will increase this year.

There will also be an array of other cultural performances from December 27-30 managed by the Information and Cultural Affairs department. The Tourism department, Kolkata Municipal Corporation and Kolkata Police will oversee the security and everything else during the festival.