In a bid to beautify and add green sheen to the zoo, fresh soil has been laid in many places to make lawns and plant palms and flowers. The biggest bonanza, though, is reserved for the animals — they are getting soil in their cages replaced.

Work of replacing soil has already been completed in most of the bird enclosures, and Delhi Zoo director D N Singh says it is a “necessary move” to maintain “hygiene” of the cages. “We clean the animal excrement every day but urine that remains inside seeps into the soil,” he says. “Changing the soil will keep the cage cleaner.”

Soil is being replaced in the cages, and the zoo in general, after a gap of 12 years.

At present, the replacement is being done only in cages of herbivorous animals. The result: parrots and macaws have already got cleaner cages but lions and the big cats will have to wait a little longer.

And even among the herbivores, birds are getting the first preference. Enclosures of the spotted deer, the rhinoceros and the swamp deer would only get a fresh cover of soil. Singh reasons that soil replacement is done on the smaller enclosures first: “While birds’ enclosures are small, cages for the bigger animals run into a few acres. It would be a daunting task to get the soil dug out and then filled anew.”

These aside, the zoo has also replaced its old wheelchairs with five new ones to ensure the differently-abled visitors do not land in a spot. “Though there is not much demand for wheelchairs but we do take precautions: physically challenged persons should not face a problem when they come here,” a zoo official says. “Most of the times, though, they come with their own set of wheelchairs from home.”