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| Chief minister Nitish Kumar at the Udyami Panchayat in Rajgir on April 29. Telegraph picture |
Patna, May 17: The hospitality sector giants are expected to come calling to the city next week to attend a two-day conference of the tourism department aimed at attracting big-ticket investment after a similar meeting chaired by chief minister Nitish Kumar last month was a damp squib.
The state tourism minister, Sunil Kumar, today said the conference, christened “Bihar Calling”, would be organised this month. “The two-day conference on tourism, heritage and hospitality would start on May 24. The entire programme has been chalked out carefully and the department is working hard to make it a success. Several big names have been invited and they have confirmed their participation,” he told The Telegraph.
On April 29, the industries department had organised Udyami Panchayat in Rajgir (Nalanda). Its focus was on the possibilities of the tourism sector’s growth and Nitish addressed it. But most of the big names in the hospitality sector dodged the show. Only two investors from outside the state turned up despite sending invites to the leading entrepreneurs in the tourism sector.
The tourism department had cited two reasons for the “poor show”. First, most of the invitees wanted the venue to be shifted to Delhi. Some sources in the department claimed that the industries department could not host the event properly.
This time around, Sunil’s department is keen to make “Bihar Calling” a roaring success. “The Udyami Panchayat is a regular event of the state government and is held every fifth Monday of a month. Each time, a different sector is given attention. Last time, the tourism industry was in focus. But ‘Bihar Calling’ is an exclusive event by the department of tourism. Therefore, the focus is more and the department is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that it yields fruits,” an official told The Telegraph.
Another department official said: “The dignitaries invited to ‘Bihar Calling’ have confirmed their participation. The two-day event would be enlightening in many ways. Several prominent people would be coming in. Chief minister Nitish Kumar would be inaugurating the event at hotel Maurya. After the inauguration, there would be a plenary session on ‘Religious and Cultural Heritage of Bihar and its Tourism Prospects’. It would be chaired by Pawan Verma, the cultural adviser to the chief minister. Benoy Behl, a Buddhist scholar and a filmmaker, Anil Kumar, a professor with Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, Muzaffar Ali, a Sufi scholar and filmmaker, and Satwant Singh, the pracharak (preacher) of Shiromani Gurdwara Prabhandak Committee in Amritsar, would speak in the session on topics like Buddhism, Jain and Sikh heritage in the state and cultural tourism.”
Girish Shankar, the additional secretary of the ministry of tourism (Government of India), would chair another session of the day. Its speakers include Shaun Mann, who represents the International Finance Corporation, Subhash Goyal of Indian Association of Tour Operators, Karan Anand of Cox and Kings, Niranjan Khatri, the general manager of ITC Hotels, and Arijit Sengupta, the managing director and chief executive officer of Nicco Park in Calcutta,” the department official said.
Business-to-business sessions in connection with the national and international tour and travel operators and hoteliers would also be organised.
“The guests would be taken to Bodhgaya the next day. They would return to the city in the evening,” the official added.