Fish Aquarium of Bhopal needs a facelift !

Fish aquarium of Bhopal hosts 66 varieties of fishes including ornamental and fresh water types need am urgent facelift. Though it is a pleasure to see the little fishes and their activities in the small aquariums, but may be this whole aquarium could be made more attractive to visitors. The aquarium in Bhopal come into existence on 31st May, 1977 and is located at the prime location in Bhopal, next to Raj Bhavan in about an acre of land.

This double storey fish house is built in ‘fish like structure’. The upper portion has about 4o different kinds of ornamental fishes like Golden Shark, paradise blue, Rosy Barb, Oranda Gold, Golden Plata, Albino Oscar, Shubenkin Gold, Platty Tetra, Albino Tiger Shark, Golden Gormi, and Black Moor. The lower storey hosts 26 big aquariums for fishes brought from state and national lakes, rivers and ponds. Among the ones which could be seen are Rohu, Katla, Mirgal, , Collet, Ticto, Pencil-Fira and Bam fish.

But the lower portion smells and the individual aquariums are poorly maintained. Two of these aquariums don’t even have any fish in them. Interestingly there is no leaflet available at the aquarium to give more information to the visitors. Neither any personnel of the aquarium knows details on fishes and nor is willing to guide. The standard reply is that ‘please see the information boards installed’ which have very limited information. The hall meant to sell fishes is also lying closed. Such a prime resource at Bhopal could have being one of the ‘attractive places to visit’ is lying hardy used.