Maharashtra's 1st floatel to be launched on Saturday

A three-deck luxury yacht, Maharashtra's first floatel, will be inaugurated by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis here on Saturday, said the owners.

The floatel, christened 'Celestial' (divine/heavenly), is moored on the Bandra Reclamation shore of the Arabian Sea, towards the Mahim end with an exclusive approach road.

The site offers a view of the sea, the Rajiv Gandhi Bandra-Worli Sea Link (RGBWSL) and an uninterrupted skyline of the maximum city from Bandra to Worli with several prominent landmarks.

"We are inaugurating it formally tomorrow as a luxury fine-wine-dine locale. It will be thrown open to the public in due course," one of the owners, Aishwarya Bhende told IANS.

The cuisine will be varied with a signature menu of modern European and she hinted "it would be a five-star experience" on the patrons' pockets.

The floatel is the first project of WB International Consultants run by the family of entrepreneurs comprising Chetan Bhende, his interior decorator wife Manju and their 21-year old management graduate daughter Aishwarya.

Celestial will be operated by the family as a joint venture with AB Hospitality and the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation Ltd as a profit-sharing partner.

It was a brainchild of the then Tourism Minister Chhagan Bhujbal of the erstwhile Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government, who had first thrown open the yacht in May 2014 after it arrived here.

After this project takes off successfully, the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC) has plans to encourage more such floatels dotting the city's huge skyline on the eastern and western coasts, and other coastal districts of Palghar, Thane, Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg on its 760-kms long coastline.

--IANS

qn/in/vm