The Orissa tourism department is currently giving final touches to its new tourism policy and intends to circulate the copies of the policy to different relevant government departments by the end of this month.
The move is aimed at incorporating relevant inputs and changes, if necessary, to make the new policy acceptable to all.
“We are keen on finalizing our new tourism policy as soon as possible. Before being finalized, the tourism policy would be sent to different departments so that their inputs and necessary changes can be incorporated in the policy”, an official source told Business Standard.
The new policy is likely to cover the whole gamut of issues pertaining to tourism ranging from capacity building to creating an enabling atmosphere to boost inbound tourist arrivals and investments in the sector.
“One of the key components of the new tourism policy is the creation of dedicated land banks for tourism projects. All the district collectors have been asked to identify land that can be set aside for development of tourism projects”, the source added.
With a view to encourage investments on tourism infrastructure, the state tourism department is mulling to offer investment subsidy on different tourism projects.
The investment subsidy scheme would hinge on the scale of investment and on the region where the project would come up.
The subsidy ranges from Rs 25 lakh to Rs 7.5 lakh depending on the scale of the projects.
The subsidy can be availed by the units after commencement of commercial operation. The interest subsidy would be paid only for the first five years from the start of operation.
The tourism policy would also offer tax sops to the investors wherein all tourism projects shall be exempted from payment of entry tax on purchase of raw materials for the entire construction period or for a period of three years whichever is lower.
The waiver of entry tax would be applicable to projects like hotels, heritage hotels, resorts, service apartments spa and wellness centres, amusement parks, art and crafts villages, golf courses, convention centres, adventure tourism projects and eco-tourism projects to name a few.
Besides waiver of entry tax, the tourism department has decided to extend the 50 per cent exemption in stamp duty to hotel projects.
On the connectivity front, the state government intends to develop 12 airstrips in order to enable them to handle small aircraft suitable for air charter services for tourism purposes.
The state government shall offer these airstrips for development to the private sector on the public private partnership (PPP) mode.
The draft tourism policy talks of constituting an eco-tourism committee within the ministry of environment and forests.
The committee would be responsible for the regulatory and policy efforts for development of eco-tourism in the state as well as coordination between the departments of environment and forests as well as tourism.
Plans are also afoot to set up dedicated bodies for tourism development in the state at various levels.
In its draft tourism policy, the state tourism department has proposed to form the State Tourism Promotion Council (STPC), the apex body to guide, supervise and monitor the development of tourism and various tourism related issues.
