GUWAHATI: Like last year, the Kaziranga National Park is set to open for visitors on October 2 this year, a month before the usual opening date of November 1.Park officials said only two forest ranges — Kohora and Bagori — will be opened initially because of large-scale devastation to Kaziranga 's infrastructure by the floods. Agoratoli forest range on the eastern side of the park will be out of bounds for tourists for the time being."Roads along the visitors' circuits are being readied right now so that jungle safari becomes possible. The impact from the heavy floods in July and August in Kaziranga is very much there and it will take some time to tide over it.At the moment, we are focusing on preparing the infrastructure for visitors," an official said. One of the reasons behind opening the park ahead of time is to ease the rush of tourists, an official said. Another park official said opening the park to visitors at the usual time — November 1 — would have given them enough time to repair infrastructure damage."Also, the field staff — who were mostly engaged round-the-clock in dealing with the flood situation in the last two months — would have got time to refresh their energy after gruelling work," the official added. Unlike previous years, KNP recorded zero rhino poaching during the floods as a result of active coordination between the forest department, police and the district administration.Otherwise, rhinos are most vulnerable to poachers when Kaziranga is flooded. Nearly 400 animals, including 31 rhinos, were killed in the floods in July and August.Majority of the animals were killed due to drowning, while some were hit by vehicles while the animals were escaping the flooded Kaziranga. On August 13, Kaziranga experienced one of the worst floods in three decades when water from Brahmaputra surged up to 8 metres at several places inside the park.

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