Tender floated for 6 e-carts to help elderly, specially-abled tourists

Kolkata: West Bengal Tourism Development Corporation Limited (WBTDCL) has floated tender for the installation of six battery-operated e-carts to facilitate tourists, particularly the elderly or the physically handicapped, to have a hassle-free visit inside the campus of their resorts. The e-vehicles will have seating capacity of eight people each.

"We have 33 resorts spanned across different districts in the state. Many of these properties have a reasonably large area and people, particularly the elderly or the physically challenged, face difficulty to roam about on foot and take a look at the decoration. The e-carts will prove handy for them. We will soon identify our properties where these e-carts will be deployed," a senior official of the WBTDCL said.

The state government that had started its work for renovating all its properties in 2017 has done so for most of its resorts. Some of these have become partly operational after renovation while only two are still closed for work. The properties have been rejuvenated in a manner so that they match the facilities available in five-star hotels. Chefs of a number of tourist resorts have been trained by well-known chefs of star hotels so that apart from Bengali dishes they can serve continental and Chinese too, if there is a demand from the tourists.

There are online booking facilities for all the resorts and the contact numbers of all of them are mentioned in the WBTDCL website. The advance booking period of the properties is 120 days while Hollong Tourist lodge at Jaldapara National Park in Dooars can be booked 30 days in advance.

After the Mamata Banerjee government assumed charge of the state in 2011, traditional tourist spots like Santiniketan, the Sunderbans, Dooars, Darjeeling, Murshidabad and Bankura had been given a boost and at the same time, the government has developed some offbeat places in the tourism map.

"The traditional tourist spots have become congested. The foreigners come to visit Bengal and want to board and lodge with locals so that they can get a first-hand feel of the regional customs and culture and relish the regional cuisine. So, we have developed homestays at many places, particularly in North Bengal and the Sunderbans, which have been receiving tremendous response both from domestic and foreign travellers," a senior official of the state Tourism department added.