IRCTC awards contract of three hotels

The IRCTC has already awarded bids for 24 hotels across the country. The Zoom Developers-Toshali Sands Group had bid Rs 40.4 crore licence fees for Raipur, Rs 19.79 crore for Bilaspur and Rs 29.29 crore for Guwahati and has got a total of 15 locations.

The hotel to be set up in Raipur would have 75 rooms, the hotel to come up in Bilaspur would have a capacity of 80 rooms while the one in Guwahati would have 150 rooms.

In 2006 IRCTC had announced the plan of setting up of 100 budget rail hotels across the country. In the first phase, it had decided to open bids for 30 locations.

Early last year IRCTC opened bids for 20 locations, of which 11 were won by the Zoom Developers-Royal Orchid consortium, five by Essel Group and four had gone to Signet Group.

It was to open bids for the remaining 10 locations last year itself, however a controversy erupted within the railway ministry, as to whether IRCTC or the newly created entity by the ministry, Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA), would head the Rail Ratna hotels project.

Though the bidding process came to a halt due to this, but amidst all this in July 2007, IRCTC awarded only one bid for Bhubaneswar, which was won by Zoom-Toshali consortium.