kolkata the alipore zoological gardens has installed more cctv cameras on the premises and at animal enclosures to keep an eye on the visitors during the ensuing festive rushthe idea according to a senior official is to check harassment of animals alipore zoo director asish kumar samanta said they had installed at least 20 new cctv cameras in different zoo enclosures the new cameras have been installed at the enclosures of kangaroos deer and at the reptile house we already had 40 cameras and the installation of the new set brings the entire zoo under cctv coverage added samanta according to him more than 20 lakh people visited the zoo in last december and januarythe cops also expressed satisfaction over installation of cctv cameras at the enclosures while the footage are important to stop harassment of animals we were also concerned about one more thing the area is a vip zone that is used by the cms convoy every day besides security drills each year our watch section manages to nab a number of pickpockets from the zoo once we have cctv footage we can identify the gangs and repeat offenders said a senior officeran official said there was another purpose for installation of additional cameras we want to keep an eye on the animal behaviour as well for example we are in the process of installing cctv cameras at the enclosure of fishing cats for which we have taken up a captivebreeding programme besides cctv cameras are also being installed on the premises of the zoo hospital to keep an eye on sick animals said state zoo authority member secretary v k yadavthe authorities are also planning to send a proposal to the state pollution control board to make zoo a plasticfree zone besides we will write to kolkata police to make the area around zoo a nohonking zone yadav had said earlierthe police meanwhile have drawn up elaborate plans to check traffic congestion outside the zoo the idea is to ensure that cars coming from vidyasagar setu and turning right towards d l khan road do not block traffic towards rabindra sadan similarly our experiment allowing vehicles from d l khan road to cross the race coursepts crossing in groups by segregating traffic near d l khan roadsambhunath pandit street has worked well so far said an officer lalbazar said shortterm proposals had been chalked out to decongest the locality that witnesses traffic snarls that extend up to 15km on weekends in december and january