The Hindu : Kerala / Kochi News : Bhoothathankettu getting ready to welcome tourists

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Monday, Jul 28, 2008
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Bhoothathankettu getting ready to welcome tourists

Staff Reporter

Second phase of development work is expected to be completed in a month

— Photo: H. Vibhu

Scenic Settings: The Bhoothathankettu tourism centre is growing in stature and bus loads of visitors arrive, especially on holidays, to savour its beauty.

KOCHI: The tourism prospects of Bhootathankettu is set to get a boost with the second phase of development works expected to get over in a month.

The destination suffered a major blow following the Tattekkad boat tragedy that claimed the lives of over a dozen school children and three teachers over a year ago.

Under the second phase, the District Tourism Promotion Council (DTPC) has spent Rs 20 lakh to ready a boat jetty, apart from landscaping the area, arranging equipment for children to play and installing better lighting.

The project area around the reservoir has also been fenced. Tourist flow to the area fell after the tragedy, when the licence of boats operating there were cancelled.

The government has agreed to issue licence to boats that conform to safety standards. As of now, only pedal boating is allowed in an enclosed area.

DTPC secretary I.G. Chandrababu said a destination-management council with T.U. Kuruvilla, MLA, as chairman would soon be formed so that people from the locality too would benefit from tourism.

The committee will have representation from different government departments too. Mr Kuruvilla has submitted a project to link Bhootathankettu with nearby tourist destinations like Thattekkad.

Under the first phase of developing tourism amenities at Bhootathankettu, the agency had spent Rs 55 lakh to build a restaurant, toilets, information office and a pedal-boating terminal in the enclosed area.

On a visit to the site a week ago, Tourism Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan had said that programmes were being worked out to get Central funds worth Rs 5 crore to ensure better tourism amenities at Bhootathankettu.

“As of now, the garden has to be better maintained. Inadequate accommodation is another problem.

To tide over this, the possibility of converting eight residential quarters of the Irrigation Department into accommodation facilities is being probed. A high-level meeting has been planned in the State capital for this,” Mr Chandrababu said.

The Agriculture Department has submitted a project to promote farm tourism on 50 acres of the 200-acre farm of the department at Neriamangalam. The project would materialise in another two years and the DTPC has promised all help.

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