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The Gujarat government will invest Rs 635 crore for infrastructure development and tourism promotion over the next three years, according to Mr Vipul Mittra, Secretary, Tourism and Civil Aviation, Gujarat.
Talking to Business Line on the sidelines of a road show to promote the Saputara Monsoon Festival, Mr Mittra said that the tourism budget was enhanced to Rs 200 crore this year to enhance the tourism potentials of the state and bring Gujarat on the international tourism map.
After the Gujarat government started its aggressive promotion of tourism, with Amitabh Bachchan in tow, tourism officials claim that the tourist arrivals to Gujarat increased by at least by 20 to 30 per cent after riveting television promos featuring the Bollywood legend were released last year.
Beach tourism
According to the Tourism Secretary, his department has identified several spots along the State's 16,000-km coastline, many of them virgin, for promoting ‘beach tourism' with a view to attracting domestic and foreign tourists to the state.
Further, the government has now embarked on promoting the hill station Saputara by initiating an annual monsoon festival to be held from July 30 to August 30 starting this year. Situated at about 873 metres above sea level on a plateau in the Dang forest area of the Sahyadri Range, the picturesque locale of Saputara will be showcased across various cities in Maharashtra through road shows. Over the next 15 days, road shows will be held in Pune and Nasik.
The Gujarat government has earmarked Rs 106 crore for infrastructure development of the place through public-private partnership model.
“As part of the project, a lake three times the size of the existing one, parks, gardens, sunset points and other infrastructure facilities like roads and restaurants will come up at the place,” said Mr Jay Narayan Vyas, Minister of Tourism, Gujarat.
The Minister said that on an average, Saputura receives around 5,000 visitors every day. However, there are just 530 rooms in the hotels for 1,500 people.
“There is a captive traffic of 12 lakh people passing through that circuit. By creating facilities and proper infrastructure, that traffic can be diverted to Saputara,” Mr Vyas said. As part of the incentives offered by the Gujarat government, the VAT has been reduced to four per cent and room tax to six per cent, he added.
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