Tourism sector opens up to private capital

Additional Secretary (Tourism) Bijoy Chatterjee announced the new policy on Friday, stating that the state will witness private investment amounting to Rs 4,000 crore in the next two years.

He added that companies like EMAAR MGF and Mahindra & Mahindra were some of the investors interested in the tourism sector of the state. Such companies will invest in hotels, training institutes, resorts and tourism villages. Chatterjee said that keeping in view the rising price of land, the floor area ratio norms, similar to that of IT sector, will be applied to hotel projects. For the first time, the tourism policy talks about the possibility of creating tourist police to provide security to tourists. Budget hotels will be asked to increase the number of rooms in their city branches.

He added 35 projects related to tourism are waiting for the Centre’s approval. “I sincerely hope that of these projects, the Ganga project, the Calcutta circuit tourism project and the project at Sajnekhali will be approved,” said Chatterjee.

The Tourism department, in consultation with the Land and Land Revenue department, the Urban Development department and the district authorities will create a land bank by identifying and earmarking lands that can be made available for tourism-related projects.

“We are looking for foreign investments, but definitely with Indian collaboration. Apart from promoting tourism, our main thrust will be on generating employment as tourism is a labour-intensive sector,” said Tourism minister Manab Mukherjee.

The new policy has been formulated after examining the suggestions made by Ms Ernst & Young and the Bengal Chamber of Commerce. Since 1996, the number of foreign tourists coming to the state has grown six-fold — from 0.18 million in 1996 to about 1.1 million in 2006.