Bihar State Tourism Development Corporation (BSTDC) has initiated steps to redevelop four of its hotels as star-category hospitality facilities.

 

 Despite the year witnessing an increase in foreign tourist inflow in Bihar, a five star enterprise is still a distant dream with no private player expressing willingness to open top rated hotels in the state. However, the state tourism department has ambitious plans to develop city's Kautilya Vihar and three other hotels in Bihar into a four star enterprise offering latest facilities such as Ayurvedic clinic, health club etc in next few months. The other three hotels will come up at Bodh Gaya, Muzaffarpur and Rajgir. Presenting the annual report, principal secretary of tourism department B Pradhan said, "The state now ranks sixth among the top 10 states when it comes to foreign tourist inflow as per the ministry of tourism. Nearly 65 lakh domestic visitors came to Bihar till August 2013. We are acquiring land for more hotels but a five-star hotel is not yet in the offing."

While the department plans to develop water, health and rural tourism in the state, altogether 66 projects worth Rs 12.5 crore is lying incomplete under the department. "There are many pending projects and our plan outlay was cut from Rs 145 crore to Rs 45 crore by the Central. But, we hope the outlay would be increased by December end. At present, we are struggling to provide even basic amenities at tourist spots with our limited resources," Pradhan said. 

Throwing light on reports of forming a special police force for tourist spots in the state, Bihar State Tourism Development Corporation ( BSTDC) managing director Vinay Kuma said, "Police is a unified organization and we cannot form a force out of it. However, the department recruits private security guards for supervising the visitors."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
source: TOI