Andhra Pradesh - Vijayawada   

Eco-tourism project to attract visitors to Kolleru

— Photo: Ch. Vijaya Bhaskar

Smooth sail: Minister for Information and Public Relations, Cinematography and Tourism Anam Ramnarayan Reddy along with VGTM-UDA Chairman Malladi Vishnu seem to admire the beauty of the Krishna from Bodhisiri cruise in Vijayawada on Sunday.

VIJAYAWADA: With Operation Kolleru restoring some of the pristine glory of the lake, the State government has decided to implement an eco-tourism project to attract tourists to the lake.

The Rs.6.83-crore project will be executed in association with the Union Ministry of Tourism, which passed on Rs.3.58 crores for the first phase of the project to the State Department of Tourism on Saturday, according to Anam Ramnarayan Reddy, Minister for Information & Public Relations, Cinematography, Tourism and Culture.

“The project will link Kalakarru and Gudivadalanka by boats, which will be operated from a base camp where there will be cottages,” said Mr. Reddy at a press conference on board Bodhisiri cruise in the Krishna on Sunday.

The Minister said a 100-room budget hotel at a cost of Rs.8 crores was already coming up in Vijayawada, while a 40-room hotel in Machilipatnam (Rs.2.4 crores), two 20-room hotels (each Rs.1.2 crores) in Nuzvid and Jaggaiahpeta would also be built in public-private partnership model soon.

The hotels would be constructed on Government lands, especially those belonging to the Roads & Buildings Department and lying unused.

These four hotels in Krishna district were part of the 35 budget hotels that the Department of Tourism was constructing in private partnership in the State.

Mr. Reddy disclosed in reply to a question that the proposed special tourism train, which had been tentatively named ‘Southern Splendour’, could be on the rails by May or June next year.

The Rs.90-crore project was a joint venture of the Centre and the State Government, though Governments of Tamil Nadu and Orissa too had evinced interest in becoming partners in the project.

Even if these two States did not join the project, the State government was ready to go ahead with it on its own, he made clear.

Mr. Reddy said as many as 19 special coaches were being manufactured at the Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala, for the special train.

Once they were received by the government, they would be done up in the interiors to depict the Telugu culture. The train would begin in Hyderabad and touch important places like Puttaparti, Tirupati, Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu and go up to Konark temple in Orissa, covering other important tourist places en route.

Asked whether some of the recent bomb blasts in Hyderabad had affected the flow of tourists into the State, the Minister admitted that the tourist activity did suffer to some extent but the government was taking remedial measures to restore the confidence of tourists.

That it had not impacted to a great degree was evident in the fact that Hyderabad had been chosen to host the next meeting of the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA).

Mr. Reddy lashed out at TDP chief N. Chandrababu Naidu for making a series of promises now without implementing any one of them when he was in power for nine long years.

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