Better facilities in nature resorts: Review meeting to be held

West Bengal Forest Development Corporation (WBFDC) will hold a review meeting to take a stock of the progress of the ongoing projects in North Bengal districts and assess further development needed in the nature resorts to provide better facilities to tourists.

The decision of transforming eateries in the resorts, where only boarders are allowed to eat at present, to restaurants will also be taken in the meeting scheduled to be held on April 14 at Siliguri. The restaurants will be opened for non-boarders to let people enjoy the local cuisine.

It may be recalled that the eatery in Buxa Jungle Lodge in Rajabhatkhawa was transformed to a restaurant ahead of Durga Puja in 2016. Now, the decision to implement the same project in other nature resorts of WBFDC would be taken in the forthcoming meeting.

Udayan Guha, Chairman of WBFDC, said: "We have many plans and there will be a meeting on April 14 to discuss the same. General and divisional manager of North Bengal will also be present in the meeting. We will also discuss in which resorts eateries can be transformed to restaurants."

At present, WBFDC have 91 resorts with accommodation of around 260 people at a time. The resorts are situated in 18 different locations of North and South Bengal. But maximum number of the resorts are in South Bengal.

Since the resorts remain booked most of the time in a year, the corporation had decided to increase accommodation capacity in the resorts. The work to increase the capacity started in the resorts at Jaldhaka Valley in Dooars, Malangi in Hasimara and Lolegaon. In some of the eco-tourism spots, floors are getting added to the resorts while in some places another building is coming up to accommodate more people. WBFDC is a profit making corporation of the state government and a major share of the profit comes from the resorts.

Thus, the stock on the progress of work which were taken up to increase the capacity will be taken in the forthcoming meeting to ensure that the work does not get unnecessarily delayed.