Gujarat tourism to celebrate Ranotsav at Kharaghoda

Gujarat Tourism, as part of the state government's agenda to celebrate 2006 as tourism year, is all set to organise a two-day Rann Utsav for the first time at Kharaghoda village in Little Rann of Kutch on February 11 and 12.

State tourism minister C D Patel, Vijay Rupani, chairman of Tourism Corporation of Gujarat Limited (TCGL) and Dhananjay Dwivedi, district collector of Surendranagar unveiled the details about the Rann Utsav celebrations in the media meeting on Saturday.

C D Patel, while briefing about the celebration, narrated the history and details of the spot, "The Rann Utsav offers an opportunity to explore the history, culture, archeological sites and geography of the Little Rann of Kutch, which is geologically a unique desert landscape. We have organised this Utsav at Kharaghoda, a base for salt-manufacturing from British Colonial times, mainly because of its proximity to the Little Rann sanctuary. This palm-fringed village has relics of the colonial period bungalows and warehouses, a magnesia factory which is more than a century old, a cricket pavilion and other historic buildings."

This apart, Dhananjay Dwivedi addressed about other details like how would tourists visit this place, what arrangement is made for their accommodation and other facilities by the district administration.

"We have arranged for 100 tents on twin sharing basis for the tourist accommodation along with all other basic amenities have been taken care of, Rann Utsav also has other activities like wetlands, birdwatching, wildlife safaris, entertainment, craft bazaar shopping, cultural and traditional experience apart from luxury accommodations in tents," he explained.

Further, to attract people from other districts we are arranging two days fair wherein people can enjoy and entertain themselves, for which we have also approached Gujarat state road transport corporation (GSRTC) to make necessary arrangements of busses from Rajkot to facilitate people wishing to witness the Rann Utsav fever, he added.

When asked whether the tourists will be ready to pay such expensive tariff, which is tagged as Rs 10,000 for two persons for 2-days-and-2-nights stay, for an unknown tourist destination, Vijay Rupani, chairman TCGL replied, "Out of 100 accommodations we have already received booking requests for 80 plus, however, we are confident to go housefull, Rs 10,000 includes food, luxurious stay, drive through the desert for wildlife, safaris for a couple etc, I don't think we are charging more."

Nobody has ever envisaged of promoting Kharaghoda as a tourist destination, but we are all set to promote Kharaghoda and once it gets established we are sure that private entrepreneurs will enter the arena, making the market more competitive, wherein all possibilities are there that the prices will surely scale down, he added.