Tirupati : Pilgrim City to shine with star hotels

Tirupati : The Tourism ministry has come up with an ambitious plan to tap the potential in the Pilgrim City by leasing out its land for star hotels.

Three major hotel chains are ready to set up their five-star hotel units in the city. While the city already has three five-star hotels the tourism ministry has proposed to bring in three more reputed hotel chains to set up their units in the pilgrim city.

The state cabinet on Friday approved the proposal to allot land for tourism promotion near Alipiri – Cherlopalli highway to Novotel hotel on lease basis. Though the exact location is not yet finalised, sources in the Tourism department were of the view that it could be near the zoo park.

The AP Tourism Development Corporation (APTDC) is having 38 acres there in which 20 per cent must be left out as the buffer zone for SV Zoological Park. Accordingly, some eight acres has to be earmarked for the purpose and it is expected that the remaining 30 acres may be allotted to three-star hotels. In addition some four acres land of APTDC at its transport unit besides Devlok site is lying vacant which can also be used for the purpose of allocation to star hotels.

Meanwhile, another reputed hotel brand Oberoi has given expression of interest and visited the site sometime back. They will be given 10 acres of land for their star hotel and it is to be seen how much land will be allocated to Novotel now. It is said that one more star hotel will also come up there in the near future.

If all these are materialised, the Pilgrim City will have six five star hotels. Out of these, Hotel Fortune Select Grand Ridge is set up on lease basis in APTDC land near Shilparamam. There was already another proposal to set up another five star hotel at Horsley Hills. For this, also the Oberoi group has come forward and the proposals were accepted by the government and APTDC.

But, doubts persist on the realisation of all these proposals. Even after the site visit and completion of other formalities, there was no movement yet from the Oberoi group at least during the past six months. However, the lease amount and the extent of land to be allotted to Novotel are to be known.

The cabinet also approved the APIIC proposal to allot 75 acres of land at Electronics Manufacturing Cluster (EMC-2) in Tirupati to Wingtech Mobile communications India private limited. The cabinet has approved the lease rent as Rs 38.44 per acre.