Siliguri township bags swanky hotels

Hotel Hindusthan International, Kolkata-based five star hotel group and The Elgin, heritage hotels operational in north Bengal, have been roped in for hotels in the township, said Rudra Chatterjee, executive director of Luxmi township.

This apart, Neotia Elbit will be setting up a hospital and a City Center mall, to be operational by 2009.

A school from the Birla Group was already operational in the township.

According to Harshavardhan Neotia of Ambuja Realty Group, "Most of the flats in the first two phases of the project have been sold out. We expect another two phases to be completed in two years."

The 17.6 million square feet zone will be 60 acres of parkland.

The direct project cost of the township is around Rs 1,000 crore with ancillary investments expected to be Rs 2,500 crore, claimed Chatterjee.

"Initially the project took time to start. There was no precedence of something in this scale. However, the West Bengal Government, SJDA and WBIDC have played a significant role in driving this project to a state where it can realistically provide the platform for the development of IT, health and other knowledge networks in North Bengal," said Chatterjee.

It was located in the former Chandmoni Tea Estate, which saw violent protests over the decision to convert the tea garden into real estate.

Uttorayon was one of few township projects which had made progress despite protests.

However, two labourers were killed in 2001, when the government took over the closed tea garden, only to covert it into a township.