Mysuru Needs Environmentally Sustainable tourism, not a helipad near Lalit Mahal Hotel!!!!

Mysuru has unparalleled tourism spots including heritage palaces, old buildings with attractive architecture, lakes with stunning natural beauty and iconic Chamundi Hills with rich bio-diversity. What we need is sustainable development and not the superficial and ephemeral attraction provided by helicopter tourism or ropeway project to reach hills or energy guzzling Disney Land type of entertainment at the cost of hundreds of trees which are the lung spaces in the city.

As the globe faces existential crisis of climate change today, what we need is sustainable development. Mysuru is one of the five model cities selected by the UN-habitat to demonstrate how to achieve sustainable development. We can play a critical role by promoting such a strategy for India through Mysuru. We are all for development, but of the kind which is sustainable.

This petition, raises our attention to why promoting heli-toursim by constructing a helipad next to Lalit Mahal is not viable for attracting tourists to Mysuru and bad for sustainable development. 60 acres of land surrounding Lalit Mahal hotel hosts vegetation (about 40 species of Host Plans which are important for the breeding of butterflies) which is home to 180 species of butterflies including the State Butterfly, the Southern Birdwing, which is the biggest butterfly in India. Besides there are many other rare species like Malabar Banded Peacock, Scarce Shot Silverline, Indigo Flash, Red Flash, Common Shot Silverline, Red Helen, Lime Swallow Tail, Striped Pierrot, Western Striped Albatross, etc. In addition, this place is also the main place for the congregation of some species including the Blue Tiger, Common Crow, Albatross Butterflies as part of their annual migration from the Western Ghats to the Eastern Ghats.

Because of these reasons, this area can be considered as ‘natural museum’ for butterflies. This place is also a sanctuary for several types of birds; a fact which is not appreciated even by most Mysureans. 77 different types of birds are found here through the year, including important winter visitors like the Golden oriole, Brown shrike, Warblers, Gray wagtail etc., with the common birds like Barbets, kingfishers, Gray Hornbill, Parakeets etc. to name a few.

By preserving this space as a natural museum of butterflies and birds, we can attract more tourists than through helitourism which will end up destroying this vegetation and all the insects and bird’s dependant on the same. It will not be out of context to give the example of Dubai where an indoor butterfly museum is attracting thousands of tourists (including Indians). Any day a natural museum like the one which we are fortunate to have will attract even more if given wide publicity.

Let us also emphasize the critical need to maintain green coverage which India has assured the UN to increase to 30%. Clearing the vegetation near Lalit Mahal palace to build another helipad is tantamount to a criminal act of destroying green coverage when we need to increase green coverage on a war footing. May we suggest at least three other alternatives if the government is under pressure to promote heli-tourism. One is to request the Wadiyar family to lease the existing place. Second, is to build one on a vacant land available at exhibition ground. Landing space required is only about 10000 square feet. The third alternative is to use Mandakalli Airport. All over the world, airports are used for helicopter landing and Mysur’s airport is not all that far away. We will end this petition by urging you to drop the idea of developing the helipad near Lalit Mahal Hotel.