Tourism

A Memorandum of Understanding ("MoU") will be signed to this effect between Bihar State Tourism Development of Corporation ("BSTDC") and Assam based Assam Bengal Naviation ("ABD"). The formalities of the MoU are still to be finalized and final negotiations will be made in the next week.

Each cruise will have a capacity to accommodate 24 passengers. Though rates are still not finalized, the cruise will stop at Rajmahal, Bateshwarsthan, Sultanganj, Munger, Simariaghat and Patna.

This river cruise on the Ganga River is a low cost cruise for both domestic and foreign tourist. The cruise, with  have various luxury facilities including 12 cabins double bed (A/C) rooms, open deck, dining hall, bar, restaurant, massage centre, big hall and emergency medical facilities.

 The cruise will stop at various places such as Rajmahal which was once an early Mughul capital of Bengal. Munger is a visitor's delight for its Mughal Fort further expanded by the East India Company and a world famous first Yoga University.

Source: www.rang7.com Low Cost Ganga River Cruise from Kolkata to Patna to Start in October

'We are trying to create new tourist destinations in Birbhum and Murshidabad districts. A flight service from Kolkata to Coochbehar is starting next month. It will also help to open up western parts of Dooars for tourism,' said Mukherjee at a tourism fair here.

'While lakhs of people go to tourist destinations outside the state, many come here during the pujas, the largest festival of Bengal,' said Mukherjee.

Seven countries and 26 states are participating in the three-day travel and tourism Fair (TTF) that started here in Kolkata.

Uttarakhand, the partner state in this year's TTF, has the largest presence at the fair with over 50 exhibitors. Gujarat continues its aggressive marketing campaign in Kolkata as partner state this year too, with 22 private exhibitors.

'Apart from religious tourism, the state has much more to offer in the form of water sports, trekking and adventure tourism,' said Uttarakhand Minister of Tourism Madan Kaushik.

"Although north Bengal, Sikkim and the Northeast have some favourite hotspots for domestic as well as international tourists, the peak tourism period here does not exceed 100 days a year. So, we have felt the need to increase the inflow of visitors and to stretch the season," said Raj Basu, the president of the Eastern Himalayan Travel and Tour Operators' Association.

"If something new and unique is offered during the monsoon to attract more people, it will help the industry -- right from a porter to a tour operator -- earn more. Our plan is to launch a concerted promotional campaign focussing on the monsoon and to obliterate the concept of `off season' as it is known...States like Goa and Kerala have already succeeded in wooing tourists during the rains," added Basu.

The decision to spearhead the campaign was taken at a meeting of the association here yesterday.

Source: The Telegraph Tour agents plan to make monsoon a visit season

Eco-tourism is among the pilot projects the new board plans to take up. Bidhannagar Municipality's chairperson and her chairman-in-council members will discuss the plan to develop Salt Lake's bheris with members of the advisory committee to the civic body. The bheris are part of the East Kolkata Wetlands.

Municipality vice-chairman Sabyasachi Dutta said it would take some time for the idea to become a reality, however. "It is not going to happen immediately. We will have to discuss the issue,"he said.

The previous Left-run civic board did have a plan on the bheris but never worked on it. Biswajiban Majumder, who was chairman of the previous board, had verbally proposed to state tourism minister Manabandra Mukherjee that the bheris be developed as an eco-tourism centre. Mukherjee had asked the civic authorities to send him the proposal in writing so that his department could work on it.

Source: Times Of India Salt Lake Bheris To Be New Eco-Tourism Hubs

State tourism minister Manabendra Mukherjee, at a Bengal National Chamber of Commerce & Industry meeting on roadmap for development of tourism in West Bengal in the city on Tuesday, said major projects are lined up for infrastructure development along the river. "We are building eight jetties--first in Kolkata and last in Murshidabad -- to help private cruises operate on the route. We are getting investment proposals in the area as well," the minister said.

The Kolkata-Varanasi (operated by Pandaw Cruises) and Sunderban (Vivada) cruises are among the top in popularity in river cruises in the country. The state government is spending Rs 25 crore on the infrastructure and a Rs 130 crore project is being planned with a private investor. Out of the Rs 130 crore, 25% will be central grant, said TVN Rao, managing director, West Bengal Tourism Development Corporation. Three companies have applied for the project and one will be shortlisted by June 2010, said Rao.

On the infrastructure front, work at Baharampur and Murshidabad is over, it is in progress at Barackpore and in Chandanagar, Shrirampur, Mayapur and Palasi it is at the tendering stage, the managing director said.

Source: Financial Express Bengal targets river tourism for growth

A dried-up lake, a gutted DGHC bungalow and an ill-maintained Jagadamba Park are all that remain at Rohini.

According to local people, Rohini, located around 25km from here, used to draw a lot of people from the plains -- because of its short distance from Siliguri -- at all times irrespective of the tourist season.

"Rohini was a place which was teeming with tourists throughout the year. It was a place for family outing during weekends and holidays. But in the past two years, very few people have visited the place. There were just a few picnickers at Rohini last winter," said Ashok Rai, a DGHC employee engaged in the maintenance of the park.

The local people cited the apathy of the DGHC authorities as the main reason for the dwindling tourist influx.

"Earlier, there were more than 20 people employed in the upkeep of the park and the lake. At present, there are just 13 employees here. They live in far-flung places and do not come to work daily. This has affected the maintenance of the tourist spot," said a resident.

Source: The Telegraph Rohini loses sheen, tourists few nowadays

The state-owned Mackintosh Burn Limited has been entrusted with the job to take on the project that will be implemented in phases for the next one year. The project has been sanctioned under the Centre's Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).

Municipal commissioner Arnab Roy said no heritage structure will be touched during the project. "The project only entails restoring the heritage look of the footpaths surrounding the GPO and installing lamp posts that compliments the heritage look of the area. Besides, some small garden landscaping will also take place in a few places," Roy said.

Mackintosh Burn MD N Dhar said they have already started working on this project. "The footpaths will be restored with granite settings so that the original heritage look gets revived. The plan also includes planting trees on the sides of the footpath for an aesthetic look," Dhar said.

Earlier, the state government had worked on a plan to revive and protect the heritage structures of BBD Bag. The Delhi-based Consulting Engineering Services (CES), which was appointed by the state government, had prepared the plan and had submitted it. However, the government is yet to implement the plan, as the underground car parking lot was separately taken up and the KMC now taking over restoring the footpaths and streetlights.

Speaking at a tourism ministry's Singapore roadshow for promoting the Delhi Commonwealth Games and visa on arrival on Monday night, the agents said travelers were no longer comfortable to make a return trip to India, having landed at one of its airports and then travelling to neighbouring countries.

The ministry and the Indian high commission officials, led by assistant director Neela Lad, explained that the New Delhi had liberalised the visa restrictions by giving authority to immigration officials at entry points to allow a person of Indian origin to revisit within the two months.

The agents were not satisfies by the clarification given by the officials and said there were no certainty that Indian immigration officials would allow re-entry to a traveler who had landed in India, and then went on to visit places such as Kathmandu or elsewhere in Pakistan or Bangladesh.

Source:www.mydigitalfc.com India's new visa regime problematic: Travel agents

"A Committee of Secretaries has cleared the proposal for single-window clearance of hotel projects and this is to be posed for Cabinet approval soon," Union minister for Tourism Kumari Selja said, while inaugurating the third Great India Travel Bazaar in Jaipur.

Under the proposal, hoteliers will need to submit only one uniform application for their projects. Committees will be formed at the central and state level for clearance of these projects.

At the Union level, the committee will be headed by the tourism secretary and at the state level, it will be chaired by the chief secretary.

"I will be heading the committee in the government of India. It is my responsibility to get it (hotel projects) through, whether it is from the state government or the central government," tourism secretary Sujit Banerjee said.

Source: Realty Plus Cabinet to mull single-point nod for hotel projects

As per sources, the government is mulling over the introduction of a trip-based system wherein the holder of a multiple-entry tourist visa would be allowed to make only three trips during the validity of the visa (which could either be 90 or 180 days, as the case may be). Under this system, the two-month cooling off period would be done away with and a holder would be entitled to make three trips to India on a multipleentry tourist visa as long as it is valid. After having made three trips during the visa validity, the holder will have to seek a fresh visa.

With a mechanism like this, the government not only hopes to enable the security agencies to effectively monitor the periodicity of the trips by foreign visitors on tourist visas but also detect misuse. Realising that genuine tourists should not be inconvenienced, the government is hoping to put those misusing multiple-entry tourist visas under the scanner.

The government had earlier clarified that a foreigner who exited after availing the facility of two or three entries within the stipulated period and sought re-entry within the two-month gap would be permitted to visit only in emergent situations like death, serious illness in family, unavailability of connecting flights. Such a request had to be backed by proper documentation.

Minister of State for Tourism Kumari Selja made the announcement at an International Buddhist Heritage Conference in Nalanda in Bihar.

According to a tourism ministry official, any tourist, domestic or international, can call the helpline for information about a place he or she intends to visit.

"They can also call the number when in distress or in an emergency," she said.

Selja added: "In December 2009, the foreign tourist arrivals in India saw a 21 percent increase over the same period in 2008. The future looks bright. We expect buoyancy to return to the sector soon."

The project, which has been funded by the West Bengal Tourism department along with Central funds, will primarily be run by self-help groups (SHG) thereby, employing local people, state tourism minster Manabendra Mukherjee said here at a CII event.

"We will launch the first rural tourism project on February 26," he said.

Mukherjee said that another similar project at Mukutmanipur in Bankura district will also be opened soon, while work on two more initiatives at Hooghly and Bankura districts are also underway.

For all these ventures, while the state government will prepare the physical infrastructure, SHGs will undertake the daily activities, for which specific soft-skills training will be imparted.

The new rules state that those coming to India on business visas can't work until they get employment visas. There are 1,395 foreigners working on projects for the Defence Ministry and 159 for the Department of Atomic Energy, all on B-visas. So, the Centre will convert all their B-visas into E-visas.

China and Russia had taken up the matter of the new rules with the External Affairs Ministry.

"We are looking at flexibility on government-to-government category projects -- dealing with defence, DAE and nuclear power. Considering the sensitivity and national interest involved, visa conversion needs to be streamlined," a government official said.

As of now, the Home Ministry is expected to complete security vetting for an E-visa applications within 45 days. If this doesn't happen, the Indian missions "may" take it that the ministry has cleared the application and process it. "We need clarity on this," the official said.

Also, the official added, the "surge in projects" necessitates an examination of the old rule that foreigners should not exceed one per cent of the project workforce or a maximum of 20.

Citing the changes made by several countries like US and UK after terror strikes on their soil, senior officials here argued that it should be left to the home ministry to chalk out plans for securing the nation.

Ministry officials pointed out that the government had so far not received any formal complaint from any country, including the US or the UK, after the new visa rules were implemented. Only a few clarifications had been sought by Washington and they have been addressed, they said.

"When some foreign missions based in India sought clarity, we told them that if someone has to worry about tourist arrivals, it is India and not any other nation," said an official.

As per the new visa rules, no tourist having a travel document valid for 180 days would be allowed to return to the country before a cooling-off period of two months.

Source: Times Of India No change in new tourist visa norms: Govt

"Darjeeling is a destination that is almost two centuries old and there is no replacement for it. However, we are trying to bring up other destinations in West Bengal and the number of inbound tourists have been increasing at a rate higher than the national average," state tourism Manab Mukherjee said. Mukherjee said that Dooars, Malda, Murshidabad, Santiniketan as well as the sea beaches in the south of the state were being increasingly frequented by tourists. The state government, through the West Bengal Tourism Development Corporation (WBTDC), was also working on a number of cultural festivals to act as promotional vehicles for establishing new tourist destinations.

"Next year, we are going to organise a cultural festival at Bishnupur for showcasing the musical heritage of the region and are also planning to hold a festival at the Hazarduari (Palace) in Murshidabad to promote the culture and crafts of the erstwhile Nawabs of Bengal," Mukherjee said. He was speaking at a press meet for the West Bengal Tourism & Food Festival 2010.

Ganga Heritage Cruise
West Bengal Tourism Development Corporation on Monday said that it would take at least six months for the Rs 130-crore Ganga Heritage River Cruise project in West Bengal to materialise as a re-tendering for private participation in the scheme will be undertaken next month.

"When we originally floated a tender for the (Ganga Heritage) River Cruise project last year, the private firms wanted a change in the proposed equity structure of the PPP (public private partnership) and also wanted a certain amount of land to set-up their onshore facilities. We have agreed to these changes and a new tender will be floated next month," WBTDC Managing Director T V N Rao said.