Tourism: Over 20K hectares identified for promoting water-based activities
kolkata: The state Tourism department has identified more than 20,000 hectares of waterbodies across the state for promoting water-based activities. The move comes as a part of the efforts by the state government to tap the enormous investment potential in river tourism and cruise tourism.
“We believe that the river-based tourism has not gone to the masses in the way it should have been. We all know about Dal Lake and the Shikara ride, but in Bengal too we have large waterbodies including the largest Ramsar waterbody in the form of EKW (East Kolkata Wetlands) where different water based activities can be initiated. We will be soon inviting EOI (Expression of Interest) for developing such facilities in these waterbodies that we have identified,”Saumitra Mohan, Secretary of state Tourism department said addressing a roadshow ahead of the 1st Global Tourism Investors’ Summit scheduled to be held from April 10 to 12 at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi.
The event is being organised by the union Ministry of Tourism, with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) as the industry partner.
Mohan urged the stakeholders interested in investment in this sector to visit these waterbodies and explore the opportunity assuring that the state government will extend all possible assistance and facilitation in this regard.
The Tourism Secretary maintained that considering the good number of heritage properties across the state, the department also needs to explore the potential for heritage walk. “A lot of people come to Bengal for medical tourism purpose and almost half of them from Bangladesh. So, there is potential for providing boost to medical tourism here. I feel that the period of stay of those people coming for medical tourism should be prolonged,”he added.
Vijay Dewan, Co-Chairman of CII National Committee on Tourism and Hospitality said that the Bengal government is very much approachable and there is a solution to every problem for potential investors here. There were state presentations from Bihar, Jharkhand , Chattisgarh etc at the roadshow.
