Orissa to spend Rs 718 cr on tourism in 5 years

The Orissa government plans to spend about Rs 718 crore over next five years to develop the tourism sector in the state. It would help the state to attain a growth of 15 percent in the tourist inflow.

According to the perspective plan prepared by the tourism department, this investment will generate direct employment for 1.2 lakh and indirect employment for another 3-4 lakh persons. The chief minister Naveen Patnaik reviewed the five year tourism perspective plan here today.

While the state government is in the process of formulating a comprehensive tourism policy to attract more tourists, the major focus would be on employment generation, said state tourism minister Debiprasad Mishra.

Talking to the media after the high level review meeting, Mishra said, the state has attained 11 percent growth in tourist arrival in the state during the last 3 years. Despite recession, the tourist inflow to Orissa increased by 6 percent last year.

In this backdrop, the perspective plan aims to achieve a tourist inflow growth of 15 percent by 2014. While 69.1 lakh tourists visited Orissa in 2009, one percent of them were foreign tourists.

Further, the number of hotel rooms is proposed to be increased to 35,000 from 22,000 at present. The state government plans to hold a Buddhist conclave for promotion of Buddhist circuit tourism.

On the proposed new tourism policy, the minister said, the consultation process on the draft is over and it would be finalised after discussion with the state finance department. Then it will be sent for approval of the chief minister.

Meanwhile, the government hopes to complete the incomplete tourism projects by 2011.This will help the state to attract more tourists and augment the income from this sector.

Though the government had started 33 tourism projects in the state, only eight projects have been completed. The remaining twenty five on-going projects are targeted to be completed by March 2011.

Sources said, a mega-tourism project connecting Puri-Bhubaneswar-Chilika (Satapada) has been taken up at an investment of Rs 35.78 crore.

Similarly, to attract the high end tourists Shamuka Sea Beach project is being implemented in public-private-partnership (PPP) mode. This will have international standard hotels, golf course, convention centre and related facilities. The government also intends to start a tourism plaza at Bhubaneswar and an aquarium of international standard at Puri.