RBI's delinking credit to help hotel industry: Selja

New Delhi, Nov 4 : Union Tourism Minister Kumari Selja today said in a bid to give a boost to the hotel industry, the Reserve Bank of India has de-linked credit for Hotel projects from the commercial real estates (CRE), as this will enable hotel projects to avail credit at relaxed norms and reduced interest rates.

Addressing the Economic Editors' Conference here, she said the Government has entered into a loan Agreement with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for loan assistance to the tune of 9,495 million Japanese yen (Rs 395.63 crore approximately) for Uttar Pradesh Buddhist Circuit Development Project.

This Project includes development of Buddhist centres situated at Sarnath, Kushi Nagar, Kapilavastu, Sravasti and Sankisa.

This project inter-alia includes improvement of nearly 74 km of road component, storm water drainage system at Kushinagar and Sravasti, site attraction enhancement in the area and signage import in the archaeological sites.

This project also includes community participation, tourism Promotion Programmes.

The Minister said an international meet is being organised in Nalanda, Bihar with all trade and media representatives in February next year, to showcase India's Buddhist Heritage.

On the new initiatives been taken to provide the required skilled manpower in hospitality sector, she said this includes skill training in Food Production (cooks) and Food and Beverage (waiters) sector under the 'Hunar se Rozgar tak' and Skill Certification of existing service providers.

The Minister said a few cities of tourist importance are being selected for holistic development of urban civic amenities wherein convergence with Ministries of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Urban Development, Tourism, Culture and Road Transport would be undertaken.

She said in order to improve the quality of statistics related to domestic tourism, pilot study for the states of Punjab, Delhi, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh has been launched. The model so developed will be replicated in the other states.

The Ministry has announced a new award titled as ‘Atithi Devo Bhavah -- Pride of India Award’.

This award is to be given to individuals and institutions for exemplary dedication to the cause of tourism by going beyond the call of duty.

The Minister said, this year her Ministry has introduced a new category of awards for ‘Best Maintained City/Town/ Village / Municipal / Civic Body’.

This award will be given to encourage maintenance and upkeep of parks, tourist sites. Nominations are being invited from State Tourism Departments to recognise contributions of civic bodies, village panchayats.

Kumari Selja said, the Incredible India film commercial shown globally to promote India Tourism has won prestigious international awards at Berlin, Poland, Romania, Portugal, Czech Republic and Croatia, and is being conferred the Grand Prix Award in Vienna on November 13.

She said the Tourism Ministry had decided to grant Central Finance Assistance (CFA) for the construction of Heliports in areas which are inaccessible but have tourism potential. For the first time in the country, the state of Sikkim has been granted CFA for heliport to develop three new destination projects namely Destination Development of Mangan Tourist Axis including Heliport in North Sikkim for Rs 3.29 crore, Geetang Khola waterfall, including Heliport in West Sikkim for Rs 3.25 crore and Berfung - Ralong constituency, including Heliport at Chemchey in South Sikkim for Rs 4.22 crore.

The Minister said, after the approval of Cruise Tourism Policy, between October 25 to 27 this year, the ‘Aida Cara’ became the 1st International Cruise to Operate in India with Kochi as turn around port. About 900 International tourists disembarked through this cruise and will travel all through the country while nearly 1,000 tourists who were already in India embarked at Kochi, she said.

Louis Cruise is also going to start its operations from December with Kochi as the homeport. Similarly, Pandav Cruise operated its first international river cruise from Varanasi to Kolkata in September, 2009, she added.

--UNI

(c) 2009 Published with permission from United News of India.
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