Covid-19 made New Year’s Day celebrations a muted affair across the city's hotspots as many preferred not to step out.

The crowd was thin at the main entrance of Nicco Park on Friday afternoon, nothing like the usual New Year's Day. However, those who had turned up at the Salt Lake amusement park were in colourful outfits.

Inside, too, there were no queues to board the rides.

While revellers at the park were happy that boarding the rides was a breeze, park officials said they could not recall a year when the park had been this empty on a New Year's Day.

Nicco Park recorded a footfall of 5,000 on January 1, 2021, down from 12,000 on January 1, 2020.

“We had expected bigger crowds here. It was a nice surprise to see that the park was not that crowded,” said Amiya Pal, a Salt Lake resident who had gone to the park with her six-year-old daughter and husband.

On the Maidan, far fewer people turned up compared with previous years for picnic and other activities. People were out on the greens but the rush to find empty spots to lay down bed sheets was not there.

Similar scenes played out on the grounds of the Victoria Memorial with small groups of people streaming in all day. Queues had formed in front of the South gate, but unlike previous years they were not quite long.

The effect of muted New Year’s Day celebrations was felt by phaeton drivers in front of the Victoria Memorial, too.

“Although there were people on the streets, the number of people opting for joy rides has come down. Many asked us to wipe the seats with sanitisers before boarding,” said Mohammed Shamim, who barely managed to complete 10 trips on Friday till evening, compared with around 25 on January 1 in previous years.

Fewer people visited the Alipore zoo, although maintaining social distancing was impossible on the pedestrian overbridge in front of the zoo. Around 51,000 people visited the zoo on Friday, compared with 80,000 on January 1 last year.

There were small crowds of people in front of the tiger enclosure and Babu the chimpanzee stole the show with his antics.

“We drew a decent number of people,” said zoo director Ashish Samanta. “We had installed hand sanitiser dispensers at strategic locations.”

The only exception in terms of footfall was the 480-acre Eco Park in New Town, which was visited by around 90,000 people. Last year’s turnout was 1,13,000.

The New Town park, which has large open spaces with a 112-acre water body in the middle, seemed its usual self on New Year’s Day, with crowds savouring the afternoon sun, eating at the restaurants and enjoying boat rides.

Debashis Sen, the chairman of Hidco, which runs the park, said they tried to implement the social distancing protocol, made repeated announcements and even distributed masks to visitors. “We also constructed additional toilets and made provisions for washing hands,” he said.

Victoria Memorial

Footfall on Jan 1, 2021: 15,451

Footfall on Jan 1, 2020: 38,000

Nicco Park

Footfall on Jan 1, 2021: 5,000

Footfall on Jan 1, 2020: 12,000

Alipore Zoo

Footfall on Jan 1, 2021: 51,000

Footfall on Jan 1, 2020: 80,000

Eco Park

Footfall on Jan 1, 2021: 89,834

Footfall on Jan 1, 2020: 1,13,000