Rs 2,500 cr to be spent on tourism development in Himachal: RS Bali

Dharamsala, September 12

The state government is making efforts to develop adventure, religious and nature tourism infrastructure.

RS Bali, Nagrota MLA and Chairman of the Himachal Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (HPTDC), today presided over a state-level meeting of officials of the Tourism Department at McLeodganj. He said the government had kept an ambitious target of welcoming five crore tourists every year. To achieve this target, the government would spend Rs 2,500 crore with help from Asian Development Bank (ADB). A grant of Rs 1,300 crore was approved for the project initially, he added.

Bali said in the current financial year, the government had made a budget provision of Rs 400 crore to promote tourism in the state.

He said the tourism sector is the backbone of state’s economy. Thousands of families of the state earn their livelihood through tourism directly or indirectly. Bali added that roads to tourist places that were damaged due to the disaster had been restored and the state was now ready to welcome tourists again. He added that the inflow of tourists was increasing again.

Bali said projects like the expansion of the Kangra airport, construction of an international convention centre in Dharamsala, a zoological park at Bankhandi, an old-age wellness resort and a musical fountain in Nagrota Bagwan, proposed tourism village at Narghota and an ice-skating and a roller-skating rink in Pragpur would be implemented soon to make Kangra the tourism capital of the state. The work on projects like a golf course at Pragpur, Dhauladhar Biodiversity Park in Dharamsala and the construction of a heliport would be initiated soon, he added.