IRTC to set up four budget hotels in ECoR zone

Bhubaneswar, Apr 6: The Indian Railway Tourism and Catering Service will set up four budget hotels under the East Coast Railway division, IRTC Chief Regional Manager Sanjaya Kumar Mohanty said.

Talking to newspersons here, Mr Mohanty said the IRTC has identified Bhubaneswar, Puri, Cuttack and Visakhapatanam where the budget hotel would be constructed close to the railway stations for the passengers.

These hotels would be erected under the Built Operate and Transfer(BOT) basis for which tender would be floated soon. While the hotels at Visakhapatanam and Cuttack would be built on the railway land lying vacant close the the station, a government land near the Bhubaneswar station had been identified for the purpose, he said.

The Railway, he said, was yet to identify the land for constructing the budget hotel near Puri railway station.

Mr Mohanty said the IRTC would offer tourism package inside Orissa at selected tourist destinations for passengers coming to the state. Initially, such tourism package would be confined to Puri, Konark, Chilka and Bhubaneswar and later other tourist places would be covered under the scheme, he added.

He said the IRTC would take care of everything from boarding the train to the tourist destination and finally the return journey. It would arrange fooding, hotel accommodation of the tourists and the transportation to ferry the tourists to the destination site.

Mr Mohanty said in the first phase, the IRTC has finalised two packages--one during the world famous Car Festival and the second between Howrah and Puri. The IRTC will coordinate with its other offices located outside the state to provide tourism, package to the people of Orissa to visit their choice of places.