Cottages at tourist spots remain on paper

Vijayawada: The hills around Vijayawada and Amaravati capital city location are having a huge tourism potential but the lack of cottages facility is a setback to tourists. The government made plans to construct cottages almost one year ago but still there is no progress in this regard.

Lakhs of people are visiting Kondapalli Fort, Pavitra Sangamam and Durga temple daily but they are leaving from there without spending time due to lack of accommodation.

Indeed, the endowments department is having a huge bunch of lands under the purview of new capital Amaravati location but the authorities failed to construct cottages to provide accommodation for devotees.

The devotees of Durga temple and Mangalagiri Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy (Panakala Swamy), who reach to visit the temples from various parts of the state, are facing severe inconvenience due to lack of cottages but the government has not fulfilled its long-standing dream so far.

Devotees, who visit Durga temple, wish to stay nights on the temple premises but there is no accommodation there. In this backdrop, devotees staying in hotels. Nearly, 20,000 devotees visit the temple every day and it touches almost one lakh on the auspicious occasions. The devotees from across the state especially northern Andhra and Telangana State visit the temple frequently.

Moreover, they prefer to stay on the temple premises. But they have no option but to stay at private hotels. Besides, there is a huge scope to construct cottages at Kondapalli Fort.

The state government also developed Krishna-Godavari confluence location as Pavitra Sangamam at Ferry Ghat in Ibrahimpatnam. In this backdrop, the location assumed significance. If the government constructs cottages, the visitors number would increase, Ibrahimpatnam former mandal parishad chairman N Venkateswara Rao said.