No Tidel Park in Ooty; municipality, activists, locals against proposal

The serene hill town of Ooty will not get a Tidel park as envisioned by the Tamil Nadu government as the municipal council has rejected the proposal amid opposition from environmentalists and local residents.

As per the master plan, a mini Tidel Park was supposed to come up at the Buttfire area on Ooty-Gudalur road and spread across 12 acres. But the municipal chairperson Vaniswari said the area is classified as an agriculture zone and there is a wetland adjacent to it.

Environmentalists argued that the area is an extension of swampy land.

Vaniswari was also reported as saying by Times of India that a theme park has been proposed in the area and so, the proposal for Tidel Park was rejected. She also said that the municipality does not have land on its own.

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TOI reported that ₹45 crore has been sanctioned for  innovative projects for the theme park at Buttfire area which would be the first tourist spot to be developed by the Ooty municipality.

Environmental activists and locals however voiced their opposition to the plan, saying Buttfire area was an extension of swampy land and a Tidel Park would spoil the rustic beauty of the region.

Dharmalingam Venugopal, environmentalist and director of Nilgiri Documentation Centre, told TOI that Buttfire was an extension of the swampy land north of Ooty.

It became a rifle range after 1858 when the Nilgiris Volunteer Rifles were formed following the Indian mutiny. “It used to be called Rifle Butts,” he said.

The area was found to have peat deposits which were used as firewood by locals. Venugopal explained in the TOI report that the name Buttfire is “a corruption of Rifle Butt fire or peat fire”.

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Locals of the tourist town noted that bringing a Tidel Park would raise the cost of living in the town besides increasing pollution, garbage and traffic issues besides water shortage and disturbing the ecological balance.

It would also replace the greenery of the rather silent town with concrete buildings by deforestation, some opined, while another suggested that the money should be used for developing technologies aimed at protecting the  biodiversity of the Nilgiris, adding that Ooty is no place for a Tidel Park.