Benaulim to get marine amusement park

PANAJI: Even as government’s ambitious oceanarium project near the science centre at Miramar hangs fire for over a decade, the fisheries department will soon invite expressions of interest for the construction of Goa’s first aquamarine amusement park at Benaulim.
Official sources told TOI that the park is planned on government-owned land of about 10 acres at Benaulim, where formerly a prawn hatchery existed.The government will float global expressions of interest and the project is planned to be taken up on public-private-partnership (PPP) basis.
Confirming the development, fisheries director Shamila Monteiro said the park will mix entertainment
with study. “It is a place where children can have their picnics, but it will also be educative. It will be a facility where people can come and spend an entire day,” she said.
While the department has conceptualized the project, it is the consultant who will flesh it out and provide detailed plans of how the park can be a “highly-attractive” tourism booster.
The park may have a translucent underwater tunnel which visitors can walk through while viewing fish, artificial reefs and other forms of aquatic life. It may also have audio-visual shows, laser shows, restrooms, restaurants, amusement rides for children, meeting and conference halls, facilities for assessment of animal health and treatment of diseases, facilities for training in-house staff and educational officers, and laboratories for research. All this depends on how the consultant develops the project, said sources.
Since it will be a PPP project, there will be an entry fee, sources stressed, adding that it will be completely environment-friendly.
The oceanarium project at Miramar, meanwhile, was recently transferred to the Goa tourism development corporation from the department of science and technology. GTDC will take a decision on it soon, an official told TOI.