After years just suddenly decided to go to Keoladeo National Park Birds of Bharatpur. Be it travel agents or the Bharatpur tourism office, no one was openly suggesting staying at the Forest Lodge where Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had stayed on 7 February 1976 and is now run by the Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation.
However, now the same bird sanctuary is running it, which has this lodge within its boundary wall. I had made up my mind whether to stay in the forest or near it. It was only one night. After traveling for three hours, we reached the lodge by road and after a while started out for a tour of the bird sanctuary by rickshaw.
Big trees, small ponds on either side of the trail, and colorful ducks and birds floating in them and swinging on the bushes. By the time Sardar reached inside Tara Singh's rickshaw, it was learned that Tara Singh had become well versed in birds, ducks, and even photography over the years. There he is neither the lone rickshaw nor the lone Sardar. It turned out that our guide Bhupendra Singh was also a Sardar but Mona Sardar. I walked well within four hours. Saw many birds, indigenous, foreign, and migratory. Saw the black vulture 'Cinereus Vulture' for the first time.
The history of this vihara spread over thirty square kilometers is also long. More than two and a half hundred years ago, Maharaja Surajmal had constructed the Ajan Dam at the confluence of two rivers Gambhir and Banganga to save his kingdom from floods, so not only did the reservoir become a wetland or moist area was also developed in the dense forest.
Although the Maharaja used to come here to hunt deer, the credit for building the bird sanctuary goes to Prince Harbhanji of Morvi, the king's visionary administrator. They built banks, built water bodies, planted trees, and in no time, guests like ducks and British viceroys started arriving here from far away countries.
This monastery was one of his favorite hunting grounds. In 1925 the Forest Act came in and the hunting department was also included. This bird sanctuary can boost the tourism of Bharatpur and East Rajasthan provided one pays attention. The entire focus of the Tourism Development Corporation is on the royal train which is not running and the four rooms of the Forest Lodge, where tourists want to stay, are closed waiting for repairs. While the rest of the rooms are running in reserve for the last few weekends.
In spite of less means and decoration, the rooms of meditation are clean and the food is simple and delicious. The Interpretation Center named after Salim Ali should be included in the Vihar Darshan and like Sultanpur, bird information boards should be put up at the height which is visible. The trained guides from the forest department should continue to get work.
They should be included in the ticketing system and some group tours may be run from the forest entrance at fixed times. It is also necessary to live up to the expectations of the tourists coming to fly the hop. I will go back and stay in the same lodge because I feel like a forest there. This world heritage is the pride of the country, the state, it is not only a means of earning, while it can also make good earnings.
