The first thing that catches the eye at the iconic Dinosaur Fossil Park and Museum in the village Raiyoli in Gujarat’s Balasinor taluka are the overgrown bushes. Standing up to two feet tall, they frame every winding path that leads visitors to fossil exhibits, their wild growth and prickly thorns getting caught in delicate pieces of clothing and sparking concerns about snake bites.
Earlier this month, teams from the Geological Survey of India visited the protected fossil site to help pitch it as a contender for the coveted UNESCO “geo-heritage” tag. The survey came 40 years after two geologists, GN Dwivedi and DM Mohabey, stumbled upon large dinosaur bones and fossilised eggs in the area – a discovery that put Raiyoli on the map.
But for a site that aims to become one of the major tourist destinations of the country, the park paints a picture of neglect. From overgrown vegetation in the park and seepages and broken exhibits in the Rs 25-crore state-of-the-art museum to a lift irrigation project nearby that experts claim poses a threat to the protected site, the Dinosaur Fossil Park and Museum appears to be plagued with problems.
When The Indian Express visited the place, the overrun pathway leading in the 72 hectare-park meant many exhibits further in were almost inaccessible. Meanwhile, at the museum that lay across the road, some other visitors who had travelled here from outside Gujarat were in for a disappointment: the museum was facing a power outage, shutting down the major digital displays.
According to a senior GSI official, “earnest efforts” are being made to have the site included in the UNESCO list. “It’s an extremely important site for research on dinosaurs and there’s a possibility that more rare fossils are located around it,” this official says.
Meanwhile, a staff member at the park promises that “the vegetation will be removed soon”.
According to GSI’s ‘Dinosaurs of Gujarat’, a February 2017 publication of the different research projects on the dinosaur fossils in the state, Dwivedi and Mohabey were conducting a systematic geological mapping when they stumbled upon the bones about 1 km west of Raiyoli.
“Subsequently, the Paleontology Division of Western Region of GSI confirmed them to be of the dinosaurs. After the formal processes, the excavation work commenced in January 1983 on the western slopes of the hillock facing Raiyoli village, using crow-sbars, spades, shovels, chisels, hammers, plaster of Paris, cloth bandages, and chemicals,” it says.
The bones were eventually discovered to belong to Rajasaurus narmadensis and Rahiolisaurus gujaratensis, large bipedal carnivorous theropod dinosaurs believed to have walked the earth in the Late Cretaceous period some 67 million years ago.
Although similar discoveries were subsequently made in different parts of Gujarat, what made the Balasinor one special was that it was one of the largest hatcheries of dinosaur eggs in the world, third only to Aix-en-Provence in France and the Mongolian Gobi Desert.
The possibility of the discovery of a new species of dinosaurs in Gujarat had sparked international interest in the 90s – in December 1997, a team of 50 paleontologists, including an American paleontologist Kirk Johnson, currently the director of Natural Museum of National History Museum in Washington DC, visited Balasinor to study the dinosaur eggs.
The erstwhile royal family of Balasinor welcoming a team of 50 palaeontologists that visited the fossil park in December 1997. (By special arrangement)
It was also around this time that Aaliya Sultana Babi, the nawabzadi of the erstwhile princely state of Balasinor and an amateur paleontologist and conservationist, began to take keen interest in the site. Popularly known as ‘Dinosaur Princess’, Aaliya has been involved with the site’s preservation ever since.
Before the area was discovered to be a fossil site, locals would use the eggs to grind masalas, she tells The Indian Express.
“After they were proven to be fossils, I came across a woman in a local village grinding masala with what looked like a dinosaur egg. On closer examination, it was indeed a fossilised egg covered with chilli paste. Since then, it’s my prized possession, humorously named the ‘masala anda’,” she laughs.
Aaliya Sultana Babi, nawabzadi of the erstwhile princely state of Balasinor, holds up ‘masala anda’. (Express photo: Aditi Raja)
According to officials and locals, the site has been a source of employment for residents and sees about 2,500 visitors a month. This number goes up during weekends, even going to as many as 2000/day around Diwali.
Paleontologist Ashok Sahni, professor emeritus at Panjab University, Chandigarh, who set up the Dinosaur of India Gallery in that city, says there’s much around the area that hasn’t been explored even though “much money has been poured into the museum”.
“The problem is that the government moves slowly and by the time, most of the things are lost,” he says.
On their part, officials of the Gujarat tourism department say that while there had been plans to expand the scope of the park, it was on reserved forest land, which limits the amount of work that could be undertaken there.
“There was a plan to create two pits where the fossils were found and erect a glass wall to allow tourists to go inside to see how the fossils were discovered but it hasn’t taken off,” says one official.
However, Deputy Conservator of Forests (DCF) Mahisagar District NV Chaudhary says that while the state forest department can clear the site of vegetation, more ambitious plans at the site require the central government’s permission.
Overgrown bushes and shrubbery in the fossil park in Raiyoli, Balasinor. (Express photo: Aditi Raja)
Experts also see the nearby Lift Irrigation Pipeline Project as a major threat. Aimed at providing irrigation facilities to water deficient villages of about six talukas of Kheda and Mahisagar district, the 40-lakh litre tank and pipeline project stands just 100 metres away from the boundary wall of the fossil park.
According to Sahni, the project poses a threat not only to the protected site and also many potentially undiscovered fossils in the area.
But Balasinor Sub-Divisional Magistrate Hiren Chauhan, also co-chairman of the Fossil Park Society that’s formed to ensure inter-departmental coordination for the park, believes the water pipeline project is imperative to the area’s development.
“The project is coming up after following due process and will cover the five adjoining districts facing water scarcity. We have to look at development while also balancing heritage,” he says.
What ails the museum
Problems also plague the museum complex located 500 metres from the fossil park. Inaugurated in two phases in 2019 and 2022, the sprawling 25,000 sq. ft facility has 16 galleries and allows tourists to experience its displays through 3D projection mapping and holograms, sensor-based interactive consoles, 360-degree interactive Virtual Reality Tour, Animated Diorama Dynamic sculpture installation, a 5D theatre and a digital forest.
For its maintenance and upkeep, the Gujarat government has contracted the Ahmedabad-based VAMA Communications. However, issues such poor manpower and security, power outages and water leakage and non-functioning displays frequently plague the museum.
Vandana Raj, founder and Chief Executive Officer of VAMA Communications, which is also behind the Jallianwala Bagh memorial complex in Amritsar, says that the company maintains over 40 museums across India. She also attributes the problems plaguing the Raiyoli museum to “structural issues” and “irregular payments” from the state government.
“Repair work is undertaken regularly but waterlogging in the older section of the museum is a structural problem since it was handed over to us. We also face a strain with funds as despite the clause for monthly payments, the authorities release funds only once in four months,” she says, adding that repairs have now been undertaken.
But SDM Chauhan denies that funds are an issue, instead emphasising on the need for better supervision.
“I have written multiple letters to the agency urging them to overcome the problems. Government payments may be delayed but they are usually cleared within a few weeks,” he says. “The issue is that of supervision. The technical faults are anyway not related to payments, and the agency is supposed to maintain them on its own.”
