Bhubaneswar: The city administration will introduce a one-of-its-kind portal Visit Bhubaneswar for its visitors.

The one-stop information portal, to be enabled with a satellite map of the city, will navigate visitors to various tourist places and provide detailed information about the sites. In other words, Visit Bhubaneswar will be a digital tourist guide to help one roam around the city.

At present, visitors to the city are either depending on the government's sightseeing packages or private tour operators for such services.

"The government does provide good sightseeing packages, but we need to follow their timetable. We remain in their control and are unable to spend quality time at certain such sites according to our choice. I hope if a website or a smartphone application is developed for the purpose, it would definitely come handy," said Devraj Mishra, a tourist from Patna, at Khandagiri on Thursday.

The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation and the tourism department will jointly develop the website. "We have already started compiling the data of the tourist sites, and these will be incorporated on the website in a digital format," said a tourism department official.

According to the department's data, Khurda houses 19 important visiting sites, including the Khandagiri and Udaygiri caves, Dhauli, Atri, Banpur, Nadankanan, Jaydev Kenduli, Chilika, Balipatna, Barunei, Hirapur, Rameswar, Salia Dam and Baberi Hills, Mundipara, Gadamantari and Bhusandapur among others.

"Bhubaneswar or Khurda at large does have a number of visiting sites. Most of them are unexplored as those are confined to the local population only. Such beautiful sites should be promoted rigorously, and it can be done only through such digital tool," said Patia resident Nayantara Maharana.

Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena said the portal's main aim would be to promote tourism of the city. "Bhubaneswar is drawing more outsiders after being adjudged the smartest city of the country. Besides, a number of people will come for the upcoming hockey world cup, and this website will help the visitors in a larger manner," said Jena.