A unique hill garden spread on 22 acres of land on way to the airport, which was set up in 2004, has become a big draw here. On Sunday and holidays, on an average, 800 to 1,000 people visit the garden. In the past five years, about 25 lakh people from Bhuj and outside have visited it.
the fifth anniversary of the garden, Mohan Shah, chairman of the Bhuj Rotary Charitable Society that runs the garden, said it had become a model for creating a similar hill-top structure at Rajkot. “Rajkot collector had sought our help for its (Rajkot garden’s) management. We were consulted even for the development of Kankaria lake garden in Ahmedabad,’’ he said. He said the hill garden had almost all kinds of rides, funworld games, two small lakes for boating atop the hill and skeleton of Asia’s biggest 75-feet blue whale which was found dead in the creek area. There were plans to construct a dome at a cost of Rs22.5 lakh for it.
“The hill garden was constructed by the government and handed over to us to run it. We were allowed to charge Rs5 per visitor for its maintenance, but we are charging Rs2 only,” he said.