RailEnquiry

PATNA: The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has decided to set up budget hotels at different locations across the country on non-railway land. Land for these hotels will be provided by respective state governments. The IRCTC is also keen on building budget hotels in Bihar if the state government offers land for this proposal.According to IRCTC managing director Nalin Singhale, in the first phase the IRCTC will construct budget hotels at Katra, Palanpur, Khajuraho and Chandigarh in Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh and Chandigarh union territory respectively. The IRCTC has received positive response from these states and union territory and civil work is being started at Katra site in Himachal Pradesh, he said. A senior IRCTC official supervising the budget hotel project said the IRCTC would construct, manage and operate budget hotels on its own. The IRCTC has asked for about one to two acre land from these state governments on lease. While about 1.5 acre land was finalized recently in Bhubaneswar (Odisha), talks are going on for other sites in the country, he said, adding IRCTC also plans to build budget hotel at Puri sea resort in Odisha.According to an IRCTC official, Bihar has a huge potential for building budget hotels. Influx of tourists from foreign countries has been on the rise these days. "IRCTC will accept any offer for building budget hotels, particularly at Bodh Gaya and Rajgir, from the state government," he said.

Sources said the IRCTC had earlier proposed to build about 100 budget hotels having one hundred rooms across the country, including Bihar, at an estimated cost of Rs 20,000 crore on surplus railway land. However, the cash-strapped railways shelved this plan in 2011.

Stung by the railway ministry's refusal to build budget hotels across the country, the IRCTC had no option but to look for opportunities to translate its budget hotel dream into a reality on non-railway land in different states, said an IRCTC official.