One of the most popular tiger reserves in the country, Kanha Tiger Reserve re- opened its gates on Monday for the tourists. Online ticket booking showed 100 tourists set to arrive on the first day, but 76 were actually allowed inside to enjoy the safari. According to the latest guidelines, strict adherence to social distancing was followed with tourists, employees, guides and drivers entering the park only after proper thermal screening with masks and with complete sanitization of the safari vehicles, before and after the conduction of safari ride.
Normally, in any Tiger safari across the country, it is required for the tourist to stay for several days to see the Tiger. The sighting is hard and depends on a lot of factors like luck, timings, weather etc. But 85 days later, the tourists who visited re-opened Kanha Tiger safari were extremely lucky to see the male tiger ‘Umrapani’ on the very first day. It is one of Kanha’s most famous tigers.
Kanha National Park was closed down on 22 March due to COVID-19 infection threat. It has been reopened again after adopting the latest guidelines of the Central and State Governments, mitigating the infection. The online ticket booking facility for Safari has also been restored as before. Under normal circumstances, an average of 600 tourists arrive here everyday but now the booking limit has been set to 100 tourists per day.
Six members from the same family were allowed to sit in the same vehicle while tourists from different groups were allowed to sit as a group of four in a single vehicle. In canters, only 12 tourists were seated instead of 18 and only one guide was allowed instead of two, in order to follow social distancing norms. Tourists under the age of 10 and over 65 years are not allowed to enter the park.
If any tourist got detected with high temperature during thermal screening, they were not allowed to enter the park. On Monday, three people were found with high temperature, who were then kept in the isolation room. Park Management Vehicles are being sanitized properly before entering the park. A specially constructed sanitizer space has been created from where the vehicles will have to pass, right before their entrance. This will help in curtailing the external infection and ensure that it does not affect the park’s wildlife. One of the most popular tiger reserves in the country, Kanha Tiger Reserve re- opened its gates on Monday for the tourists. Online ticket booking showed 100 tourists set to arrive on the first day, but 76 were actually allowed inside to enjoy the safari. According to the latest guidelines, strict adherence to social distancing was followed with tourists, employees, guides and drivers entering the park only after proper thermal screening with masks and with complete sanitization of the safari vehicles, before and after the conduction of safari ride.
