New park developed by Karnataka in Ooty

A park developed by Karnataka government in a sprawling 38 acres of land at Fern Hill in this tourist town was thrown open for public today.
Built at a cost of Rs 12 crore, the park would be a symbol of friendship between the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, Karnataka Horticulture Minister S S Mallikarjuna said while inaugurating it.
The park known as Fern Hill, is renamed as Karnataka Siri Horticulture Garden, the land for which was donated by the former Maharaja of Mysore, with an intention of helping farmers to grow potato, he said.
Some of the features of the garden are a glass house for temperate plants, topiary garden, small lakes of water, attractive Pallet, Italian gardens, he said.

As the present park covers only 60 per cent of the land and there was proposal to construct hanging bridge, chasing fountain, water tower, information centre and a canteen, Mallikarjuna said.
Stating that Ooty (Udhagamandalam was known earlier) is a Dravidian region in line with Karnataka, he said that it was a true model for linguistic friendship.