Holiday Inn to build Patna's first five-star hotel

By 2012, Patna will get the symbol of a happening city, a five-star hotel. The Bihar Cabinet is slated to clear a public-private project (PPP) to allow Holiday Inn, with its local franchisee, the Amrapali Group, to build the property. The nine-floor property will have 123 rooms (including seven luxury suites). It will have two restaurants, one restaurant with bar, 24-hour coffee shop, gymnasium, swimming pool on its third floor and three ballrooms with a seating capacity of 400 each.

The Holiday Inn proposal will give the Bihar State Tourism Development Corporation (BSTDC) a revenue of Rs 2.5 crore every month. The Hyatt and the Taj Group were the other two bidders. The hotel will be built by razing the 1.2 acre office-cum-tourist bungalow of BSTDC on the Beer Chand Patel Road of Patna. In July last year, the Bihar Cabinet approved a new tourism policy under which investors would be entitled to benefits similar to what entreprenuers get for setting up the industry under the Bihar Industrial Policy 2006: This means investors in the tourism sector would get rebate in land registration, electricity consumption, luxury tax for seven years, besides several other .

The state government also has plans to develop roadside deluxe restaurants in towns like Jehanabad, Dobhi, Mohania, Patna Bypass and Hisua, where people do not travel at night for fear of dacoits and kidnappers. Tenders have been floated for the first phase and restaurants will be ready in 15 months. Some of these eateries have been envisaged as motels.