Tourism sector to get Rs 16,000 crore investment in Himachal

Shimla, January 4: Tourism sector in Himachal Pradesh is all set to get major impetus as the government has signed investment proposals worth Rs 16,000 crore for exploit tourism potential in the hill state. The backbone of the state’s economy, the government is laying special impetus on strengthening the tourism industry in the state. “225 Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) worth Rs 16000 crore has been signed for the tourism sector during Global Investors Meet and work on almost 15 percent of projects has been started.

 

In addition, groundbreaking ceremony of 81 projects with an investment of Rs 3322 crore in the tourism sector was performed on completion of two years tenure of state government,” he said.

Efforts are being made to make tourism sector employment-oriented for local residents and under which 2000 homestays and 3600 hotels have been registered in the state.

Last year, 476 new homestay units were registered. Recently, 500 homestay owners from Solan, Shimla, Mandi, Manali, Dharamshala and Kinnaur were provided training at Institute of Hotel Management.

Further, to provide employment to the unemployed youth, the state government has provided training to 939 people in various tourism industries such as tourist guide, taxi driver, porter trekking etc by HIMCON, Atal Bihari Vajpayee Mountaineering Institute Manali, Nature and Life Association, Mountaineering Center Bharmaur and HPTDC.

He said a provision of Rs 50 crore has been made Under Nai Rahein Nai Manzilein scheme, develop the virgin lands of the state.

In the first phase of the scheme, development of Janjheli of District Mandi, Chanshal of District Shimla, Bir-Biling of District Kangra, water sport activities in Largi and Pong area will be done.

“Besides this, the government is constructing ropeways as an alternate transport arrangement for facilitating tourists.

The upcoming ropeway projects are Dharamshala- Mcleodganj ropeway which would be completed by 2020.

The other ropeway projects are Sri Anandpur- Sri Naina Devi, Aadi- Himani Chamunda, Palchan- Rohtang ropeway, Bijli Mahadev ropeway, Maa Shikari Devi, Shahtalai- Dayotisidh and Narkanda- Hatu,” he added.

He added special impetus is also being laid to establish airports of international standards to facilitate high-end tourists in the state.

A proposal to construct an international level airport at Nagchala in District Mandi is in pipeline and land has been identified for it.

Under Centre government’s Regional Air Connectivity Scheme- UDAN II, since February 2019, helicopter service is being provided from Jubbarhatti airport for Chandigarh-Shimla-Chandigarh.

And since May 2019, helicopter service is being provided for Chandigarh-Shimla-Kullu and Chandigarh-Shimla-Dharamshala through Pawan Hans Limited, he added.