Indian Botanic Garden will remain closed to all visitors, including morning walkers, indefinitely from May 10 because of the surge in Covid cases, the garden authorities said.
The decision was taken on Friday by the Botanical Survey of India director, A.A. Mao.
Visitors to the garden had dwindled during the normal hours, between 9am and 5pm, because of the pandemic but morning walkers continued to throng the garden from 5.30am to 7.30am.
“The security guards were getting exposed to the virus. So we decided to close it,” said a senior scientist at the garden.
The garden authorities had issued 5,000 passes to morning walkers. On any given day, around 3,000 walkers would visit the garden.