Arignar Anna Zoological Park, also known as the Vandalur Zoo in Chennai, Tamil Nadu is India’s largest zoological park. Spread across 602 hectares, this zoo is first ever public zoo in India, having been established way back in 1855. It houses more than 1500 species of animals, birds and reptiles, including many endangered ones.
This is not all. This zoo of Chennai has now become the first ever to incorporate digitalization for providing various facilities to the viewers. And, the credit for this goes to IFS Sudha Ramen and her fellow officers.
An IFS officer of 2013 batch and and ex-employee of well known IT company Wipro, she not only developed this app but has also introduced several other features which now makes a trip to Vandalur Zoo a truly wholesome experience for the visitors.
In a conversation with Indian Masterminds, Ms Ramen shared her experiences during her stint as the Deputy Director of Vandalur Zoo.
MOBILE APPLICATION FOR ZOO
In 2018, the Vandalur Zoo app was launched with various facilities such as visual tour, online tickets booking, information about the animals and 4D-visualisation of the animals. The app was the result of combine effort by Tamil Nadu government and forest department. And Ms. Ramen played key role in the development of the app using her experience in software development industry.
Taking about it, she said “I had an opportunity to visit some zoological parks abroad. In some of the parks I saw that the zoo authorities would provide a device, attached to a headphone, through which the visitor could get information about the animals in the zoo. They would charge for it. Introducing such a facility in a zoo like Vandalur was practically not possible. Every day around three thousand people visit the zoo, and on some occasions the number could go up to 25,000. It was not possible to procure enough devices for so many people. So, the better way was an App with similar facilities”.
NAVIGATIONAL FACILITIES FOR VISITORS
She also mentions that the Chennai zoo is a pioneer in coming up with such a thing. With this app, a visitors can also use the navigation facility and know how much area they have covered. If they only have come to see some specific animal for example tiger they can know the enclosure is in which direction. Similarly, if the visitor need information about the animals, they can click on the button on the app after reaching the enclosure of that specific creature.
Besides, the app also provides adoption facilities. Through the app , any lover of wild life could select the animal and the period for which they want to adopt them and pay for it online. “Adoption facilities were always there but very few people knew about it. With making this facility online, people from various part of the country are coming up for the adoption. The system is transparent and it gives lots of satisfaction to the wildlife lovers”, said Ms. Ramen
24*7 LIVE STREAMING FACILITY
During the Covid-19 first outbreak, the Chennai Zoo started live streaming of the zoo 24*7. Anyone interested in watching the animals will just have to go the website i.e. www.aazp.in or use the app. As many as 14 species have separate channels through which one can watch their live streaming. According to Ms. Ramen the live streaming has got more than four crores views in two years and the viewers are from different parts of the world including USA, UAE, Sri lanka, UK and Singapore. “I think we might be the first one in providing this type of facility for free. We have got overwhelming response from people across the globe, which keeps us motivated”, she added.
So next time you head to the Chennai zoo, make sure to download this app in your cell-phone!
