Guj asks states to set up guest houses near Statue of Unity

The Gujarat government has written to the chief ministers of all states to consider setting up guest houses near the newly-constructed Statue of Unity of Sardar Vallabhai Patel.

A few states have evinced interest to set up the guest houses, Bhupendrasinh Chudasama, Gujarat's minister for education, law, justice and civil aviation said here Tuesday.

"We have written to the chief ministers including West Bengal to consider setting up their state guest houses near the statue. This will be an effort to boost tourism in Gujarat," Chudasama said.

The Gujarat government constructed the 180-feet statue of Sardar Patel at a cost of around Rs 3,000 crore in Narmada district on the state.

The minister said on an average, 15,000 visitors visit the statue every day.

"It will be lovely place for the states to set up their guest houses near the statue," he said at a news conference on 'Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2018' here.

Chudasama said that apart from textiles and ceramics, tourism is also a major thrust area of the state.

In the 2017 edition of the summit, the government was able to commission 73 per cent of the investment proposals received by the state, he said.

There were other business interests like chemicals and petrochemicals in the Dahej PCPIR (Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Incestment Region) area.

Asked to comment on the results of the Assembly polls in Rajashthan, Chattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, he said "these are state polls. The results will differ in the national polls".