An artist’s impression of the ITC hotel

Siliguri, June 20: The north Bengal trade hub will get its second five-star hotel by 2007.

A collaboration of Fortune Park Hotels, an ITC-Welcomgroup subsidiary, and Lipika Enterprise, a Darjeeling real estate firm with hotels there and in Gangtok, was announced today, a week after the foundation stone was laid for Siliguri’s first five-star address.

The new eight-floor hotel at Parivahan Nagar, a satellite township on the outskirts of Siliguri about 10 km from Bagdogra airport and New Jalpaiguri station, will have 134 rooms and 10 suites.

“It will be built in two phases, the first comprising the hotel building and the second a shopping mall, a cineplex and a kitchen for airline catering,” said M.P. Agarwal, the managing director of Lipika. “The first phase will be completed by 2007.”

The Siliguri-Jalpaiguri Development Authority will provide five acres for the Rs 120-crore project. “The ITC group will manage, market and promote it,” Agarwal said.

Investors have been showing interest in north Bengal of late. Food-processing companies Calypso and Dabur and electronic appliance maker Videocon are opening units in the region. Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has said others are in the queue.

The new hotels would provide a lap of luxury to the investors, their executives and the tourists who travel to the Himalayas or the Northeast making Siliguri their base.

Urban development minister and the chairman of the authority, Asok Bhattacharya, said: “Once a five-star hotel opens here, economic activity and tourism will get a boost.”