Wednesday 30 July 2014

Odisha govt green lights to sand park on sea beach

In a belated move, the state government has decided to create a sand art park in Puri. Jugal Kishore Mohapatra asked the tourism department to execute the project with technical support from famed sand sculptor Sudaran Pattnaik. "The tourism department would prepare a detailed report on the proposed project, indicating organizational structure, source of finance and timeline for its implementation," an official release said.

The government will provide around three acre free of premium to the tourism department. Jugal suggested department secretary Arvind Padhee to constitute a site selection committee for the project.

"The objectives of the project are attracting tourists to the beach town, educating and training budding talents on sand art and providing amusement to amateur artists. I will soon draw up a design of the proposed park," Pattnaik said.

Going by his plan, the park would house beautiful sand sculptures in the open. Pattnaik would also invite foreign sculptors to create magic on sand. There will be a separate block in the park to showcase photographs of Pattnaik's previous creations.

Tuesday 29 July 2014

Tourism Ministry to Set up Multilingual Helpline

India will soon have well-equipped, multilingual telephonic contact centre to provide information services to foreign tourists. The tourism ministry has initiated the action to set up a telephonic contact centre with competent, qualified and experienced partners.

This service will primarily serve those who are calling from abroad and know very little about travel within India. Also those who have reached India but don't understand Indian systems or Indian languages, often not even English, will be helped by the helpline.

The government has identified ten international languages - Arabic, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish - for the helpline. The ministry will outsource back offices for guidance services.

This helpline is expected to start by March 31, 2015.

Battery-operated vehicles for tourists at SGNP from 2015

In a bid to reduce pollution inside the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP), the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the national park authorities to ply battery-operated 14-seater vehicles at the park in Borivali. Once these eco-friendly vehicles begin plying, private vehicles will be banned from inside the park.

The battery-operated vehicles should be available for the tourists by January, said officials from the MTDC. “With this project, we will bring out the first sustainable tourism initiative in Mumbai. We want to market the national park as a tourist destination, keeping with the green and eco-friendly nature of the park,” said Rahul Vasaikar, executive engineer, MTDC.

Fifteen vehicles will take tourists from the entrance to the safari counters, Kanheri caves and boating counters and other destinations inside the national park. “We will make provisions to let tourists use multiple buses during the excursion in the park on a single ticket.

With this, pollution in the park will reduce and people will become more sensitive towards nature conservation and green practices,” said Chief conservator of Forest Vikas Gupta, adding that no private vehicles will be allowed inside the park, once these battery-operated vehicles are in operation.

At present, MTDC and national park officials are working at constructing up a parking area near the entrance as well as bus shelters along the park, in addition to upgrading basic amenities such as toilets, seating, and drinking water facilities at the park. CCTV cameras have been installed at various entrances to the park to improve security.