Jaipur: Businesses investing Rs 100 crore or more in a tourism project in Rajasthan will now receive govt land, as per the new policy approved by the state cabinet on Friday. Additionally, if tourism projects have adjacent govt land, they can acquire 10% of their project land size at agricultural or residential DLC rates.
To ease the compliance burden, tourism units will be granted trade, hotel, and restaurant licences for 10 years and fire NOC for 3 years. Such changes, among several others, in the new policy are expected to further galvanise the tourism sector, which is on an uptrend for the past few years.
Ranvijay Singh, senior vice president of Hotel Federation of Rajasthan, said, "The policy approved by the state cabinet will invigorate the tourism sector. Giving land to tourism units is the logical extension of industry status. It's a milestone decision."
Earlier, there was an option for either 1 or 10-year licences for hotels and restaurants. Now, the policy has cleared it for 10 years. Similarly, No Objection Certificate (NOC) for fire safety used to be issued for 1 year in the past, though some municipalities issued it for 3 years. In the new policy, a 3-year NOC has also been made minimum.
Eco-tourism units, film city, heritage restaurants, hotel housing, indoor and outdoor play zones, integrated tourism villages, motels and way-side facilities, resort housing, rural tourism units, and tourism startups have been added as tourism units in the new policy, which has replaced the 2015 legislation.
While the industry is waiting for details, as the policy document has not been made public, there is excitement about heritage restaurants getting composite bar licences at cheaper rates.
"Allowing composite bar licences to heritage restaurants will unlock a lot of heritage experience. Earlier, they needed 20 rooms or more to get bar licences. Previously, small heritage properties with less than 20 rooms were deprived of this facility," said a stakeholder based in Jaipur.