GUWAHATI: A season packed with wildlife and adventure is in store for tourists and wildlife enthusiasts alike, starting with a sojourn at the Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary which reopens its gates on Sunday.
“Pobitora will reopen for tourists from Sunday and will remain open either till April 30, 2019 or May 15, depending on the weather. This season we have arranged 10 elephants and 20 Gypsy vehicles for the safari inside the sanctuary,” Guwahati wildlife divisional forest officer, Pradipta Baruah told The Shillong Times on Saturday.
Assam forest minister, Parimal Suklabaidya will open the sanctuary for tourists and visitors at 8am on Sunday.
Located in the western part of Morigaon district in central Assam, wildlife sanctuary which covers 38.81 sq km of swamp land and is just about 48km to the east of the city, has the highest density of the one-horned rhinoceros in the world. “The rhino bearing area however is around 16 sq km and according to the latest census (March 2018), the population of the one-horned rhinoceros has increased to 102 (from 93 estimated in the 2012 census),” Baruah said.
Apart from rhinos, the sanctuary is home to over a thousand wild buffaloes, wild boars, different species of snakes as well as migratory birds which come as winter sets in.
“The jungle safari rates remain unchanged with Rs 1300 for six persons on vehicles and Rs 500 per rider on elephants,” he said.
The forest department expects the revenue collection from tourists and visitors to go up from the Rs 46lakh collected in 2017-18. As it is, the proceeds from tourist arrivals to the sanctuary have been increasing over seasons with about Rs 33lakh collected during 2016-17.
Tourists can thereafter move to Kaziranga National Park in Jorhat district of Upper Assam as the park partially opens its gates across two ranges, Kohora and Bagori, from October 12.
With Durga Puja starting from October 15, expectations are high among department sources that the season would see more tourist arrivals to the rhino hubs than in the previous seasons.
