The plan of organising destination weddings at the historic Orchha palace in Tikangarh district has not gone down well with the party organisers. Only two weddings have been organised in the fort, in three years. The plan aimed to promote the tourism at these places as well as provide some earnings to the state’s coffers The two departments that signed an MOU for the purpose have also put the initiative in the back burner.
The Madhya pradesh state toursim development corporation (MPSTDC) and the state archeology department had agreed to organise the destination weddings at the Jahagir mahal, in the Fort on April 30, 2016.However, in last three years only two weddings have taken place there due to various reasons that indicate a conflict between the two departments. One marriage was organised at the Orchha palace in February 2017 and another one was organised in February 2018 and thereafter no wedding has been organised there.
An official who is associated with a event company that had organised wedding in the palace said the state archeology department has several objection on it. When Free press approached them as a party willing to have a wedding there, he said that the state archeology allows us a restricted space in the area. He said the archeology department has several objections and we do not want to trouble our customers as there was a situation that when a wedding was underway, one of the archeology official came there and asked us to stop the event midway.
Managing director of MPSTDC Hariranjan Rao says that the courtyard of the fort is available for the events that will be organised by companies. He said that the interested ones have to approach us and if there are any objections by the state archeology, then they have to speak to us.