11 bidders for hotels at Shamuka

Eleven hoteliers have evinced interest to set up 5 star hotels in the Rs 3500 crore Shamuka Beach Project, the dream tourism promotion project of the Orissa government.

Some of them plan to set up hotels on their own while others have proposed to implement their projects through joint ventures.

The developers-hoteliers shortlisted in the pre-bidding stage include Taj, ITC, Ananda Spa, DLF with Hilton, Emaar MGF with Hyatt and Inter-Continental hotels, Park Hotels, Unitech with Starhood, VM Salgaocar-Goa marriot, Zoom Developers with Kamat Hotels.

These hoteliers have been shortlisted by the Orissa government from among 34 participants at the pre-bidding stage. These companies will participate in the next phase of the bidding process, official sources said. "We have already floated the tender for setting up 5 star hotels in Shamuka beach project and short listed 11 hoteliers for this purpose. The highest bidders (four) will be allotted land in the project", Rabi Narayan Nanda, director, tourism, Orissa government, told Business Standard.

He said, the pre-bid conference has been completed and the suggestions of the short listed parties have been incorporated in the revised pre-bid notice. The developers for setting up four 5 star hotels are expected to be finalised by the end of October, 2008.

Meanwhile, the state tourism department is preparing the bid notice for selection of master developer for the infrastructural development of the remaining area. It will be issued after obtaining necessary approval of the Empowered Committee on Infrastructure (ECI) headed by the chief secretary, Ajit Kumar Tripathy.

The master developer will develop an international convention center with a sitting capacity of 1500 people, 18 hole golf course with a golf resort, minimum 4 to 5 star properties with at least 100 rooms in each, development of boutique hotels, international spa and wellness center with a spa resort, urban entertainment cum retail zone and sports facilities.

Besides, the project will house Shamuka village including craft museum, workshop, Gurukul, theme gardens and common infrastructure like road, water electricity, sewerage treatment plant (STP) and drainage among others. The selected lessee will develop, design, finance, construct, operate, maintain and market all project components at the project site.

It will form a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to execute the project. The lessee will have to conform to the land use defined in the lease and to the standards and guidelines of emission, air pollution, solid waste disposal as per the Central Pollution Control Board and Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering.

The project will be implemented in public private partnership (PPP) under the Design-Build-Finance-Own-Operate-Transfer (DBFOOT) route on a long term lease basis. Termed as the dream project of Orissa government, the project will come up over 1000 acres of land initially.

While four 5 star hotels are proposed to be developed over 100 acres of land, the remaining projects are to be developed over about 900 acres of land. It is proposed to be developed as a self contained, high end, exclusive leisure cum business destination.

“This is an innovative project and will help to attract tourists from the other parts of the country and from the foreign countries”, G K Dhal, special secretary in charge of PPP said.