Nahan Foundry may make way for handicrafts village

Tribune News Service

Solan, September 14

A team of the Asian Development Bank today (ADB) visited various historical sites, including the more than century-old Nahan Foundry, to explore the possibility of converting these into tourist destinations.

The team, led by its project director Dr Virender Sharma, also participated in a workshop at Nahan where Speaker Rajeev Bindal, DC RK Pruthi, district tourism development officer Vivek Chauhan and officials of the PWD discussed the tourism potential in the district.

They visited Nahan Foundry, Suketi-based fossil park and Chowgan ground to work out their facelift with the financial assistance of the bank. The handicrafts village is supposed to provide a platform to the local artisans to display their goods as well as provide them a place to set up workshops. At least, 50 outlets are supposed to be constructed here.

The DC and officials of the PWD had visited Surajkund in Haryana earlier and the nitty-gritty to construct a similar crafts village over a 10-bigha site at Nahan Foundry had been worked out.

Facilities like huts, parking area, cafeteria, open air theatre and an auditorium have been planned at the foundry with an estimated cost of Rs 28 crore.

Bindal said all efforts would be made to uplift various historical places as there was immense potential in the district. This would also open employment avenues for the locals.

A proposal to seek ADB funding for developing Sirmaur into a tourist destination had been forwarded by former DC Lalit Jain who had got a detailed project report prepared. Besides developing Nahan as the key destination, places on its periphery like Suketi Fossil Park and gurdwara at Paonta Sahib were also incorporated in the report. The ADB team had visited the district earlier to assess its feasibility.