TN keen on luxury train for southern states

The government of Tamil Nadu is very keen to realise the long-pending dream of having a common luxury train for all southern states. The idea of 'Southern Splendor', a luxury tourist train, was mooted four years ago on the lines of the 'Palace on Wheels' in Rajasthan and 'Deccan Odyssey' in Maharashtra, but is yet to be implemented.

According to M Rajaram, Director of Tourism and Managing Director of Tamil Nadu Tourism Development Corporation Ltd (TTDC), the project cost was estimated at Rs 40 crore.

While all the four southern states and the Union Territory of Pondicherry had agreed to contribute Rs 5 crore each towards the project cost, the

Centre had committed Rs 10 crore. The remaining Rs 5 crore was supposed to be put in by the railway ministry, which is yet to give its final approval.

However, due to the delay in implementing this dream project, the cost has gone up and a fresh estimate is required to be done, he said.

Talking to Business Standard on the sidelines of a TTDC promotion campaign, here today, he said the common luxury train concept was mooted by South India Tourism Council, presently headed by Andhra Pradesh which is coordinating the project implementation.

Despite, Karnataka launching its own luxury train, Golden Chariot, recently, TTDC is very keen to realise this dream of Southern Splendor, Rajaram said.

It was proposed that the luxury train would cover major tourism destinations of south India along its 10-day journey. The main objective of having this train was to lure foreign tourists to the southern states.

Earlier, speaking at TTDC's publicity and marketing campaign, Rajaram said the TTDC will introduce rail-cum-road tour from Bangalore to Navagraha temples of Tamil Nadu. The first tour is scheduled to leave Bangalore on May 26.

The tour will cover all Navagraha temples and also Chennai, Mamallapuram, Rameswaram, Madurai, Kanniyakumari and Trichy.

He said Tamil Nadu attracted 52.4 million tourists in 2007, a growth of 29.2 per cent over the previous year. During 2008, the state is expecting a growth of 25 per cent in tourist arrivals.

Apart from providing subsidy to set up star hotels in the state, the government will also provide subsidy to set up tourism-related facilities such as amusement parks, golf course, rope car, boat house at places, which have been classified as 'Lesser Known Tourism' (LKT) places such as Pulicat village and Periyapalayam in Thiruvallur district, Rajaram said.

For setting up a single star hotel at LKT places, a subsidy of 10 per cent of the project cost (excluding land value), subject to a maximum of Rs 25 lakh is being provided.

Two star and three star and above hotel projects will qualify for a subsidy of Rs 50 lakh and Rs 1 crore respectively, he said adding that a soft loan at the rate of 0.1 per cent per annum would be extended for the first five years to help entrepreneurs.