No takers for five commercial sites

Pratibha Chauhan 

Tribune News Service

Shimla, May 25 

The initiative of the Tourism Department to rope in private players for setting up hotels and resorts by inviting bids for five commercial sites on a long-term basis of 99 years has failed to attract investors.

The last date for the receipt of bids for the five commercial sites — Baddi in Solan, Suketi in Sirmaur, Jhatingri in Mandi, Shoja in Kullu and Bilaspur — was May 16, 2016, and not even a single investor came forward.

The Cabinet had granted approval to the Department of Tourism and Civil Aviation on August 18, 2015, to lease out these five sites in the state on a long-term basis.

The government was keen on involving the private sector in tourism promotion, but with investors not showing any interest in these five sites, the plans may have to be put on hold. 

“No doubt there is a slump and nobody is willing to make any big investments, but we were hopeful that there would be interested parties at least for Shoja in Kullu, Jhatingri in Mandi and Bilaspur,” admitted a senior official.

The failure of the offer  in attracting investors comes close on the heels of there being no takers for the three aerial ropeways, including the Toba-Naina Devi, which have been advertised on four occasions with not even a single response. 

“The issue of there being no takers for the three aerial ropeways and now for these five sites is rather discouraging for us as we were planning to offer some more sites so that private investors could become major players in the tourism sector in Himachal,” said an official.

As far as these five sites were concerned, the bidders were free to develop them into a hotel, resort, golf course, health resort or some other high-end tourism project. The department had fixed the net worth of the bidders in the range of Rs 20 lakh to Rs 1 crore and the minimum amount for being eligible to apply from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 50 lakh, depending on the size of the site they will be bidding for. 

For the lease of 99 years, the bidders were required to obtain all necessary permissions as well as the environment impact assessment (EIA) and environment management plan (EMP) of their project.