Tourism ministry plans 10,000 highway facilities by 2015

JAIPUR - The Indian tourism ministry aims at starting 10,000 wayside facilities along the country’s vast highways network within the next five years to provide basic amenities such as clean food and restrooms to travellers.

“These facilities, offering rest rooms, toilets and food outlets, will come up every 40 km on state highways and every 30 km on hill roads,” Tourism Secretary Sujit Banjerjee said on the margins of a workshop on “Great Indian Travel Bazaar” here.

In this regard, the tourism ministry is coordinating with the road transport ministry, which has been in talks with the state-run Indian Tourism Development Corp (ITDC) for setting up such facilities and restaurants on national highways.

“Whether ITDC sets it up or oil companies set up such facilities at their gas stations, we just aim at 10,000 wayside facilities within the next five years,” Banjerjee told IANS during the workshop.

The ministry is promoting the public-private-partnership in setting up such facilities, the secretary said, adding that it will also provide funds for upgrading the facilities already existing.

At the workshop, federal Tourism Minister Kumari Selja said foreign as well as domestic tourists needed wayside facilities and that the ministry was working for speedy set up of such facilities.

She had inaugurated the third edition of the “Great Indian Travel Bazaar” — a flagship event in the country’s travel trade calendar, co-hosted by her ministry, the Rajasthan government and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

“It is absolutely imperative that we maintain the quality of facilities and services offered bringing them at par with the best in the world,” the minister said.

The members of the US-based Asian American Hotel Owners Association, which represents Indian Americans in the country’s hotels and motels businesses, have expressed keen interest in the past to set up such properties along India’s highways.

Founded in 1989, the association claims more than 10,000 members who own some 22,000 hotels and motels in the US that total $60 billion in property value.

(Sakshi Gulati can be reached at sakshi.gulati@ians.in and biz@ians.in)