Chiranjeevi and Naveen Patnaik in Bhubaneswar on Thursday. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, April 18: The state is set to get two more government institutes of hotel management at Balasore and Khallikote.

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik announced this at the inauguration of the new campus of the regional centre of Indian Institute of Tourism and Travel Management here today. Naveen said the food craft institute at Balangir had already been upgraded to a state institute of hotel management.

“We have also requested the ministry of tourism to have a zonal centre of the National Culinary Institute in Odisha like the one coming up in Tirupati,” the chief minister said.

The National Culinary Institute is coming up on a 20-acre site in Tirupati.

“The government is conscious about the fact that tourism is an industry that can offer employment to young people of the country,” said Union minister of state for tourism K. Chiranjeevi after inaugurating the new campus of the tourism and travel management institute at Dumduma.

“Tourism infrastructure needs better roads, trains, airlines, airports and hotels. Professionally-trained manpower is required to be in the league of nations offering excellent travel experiences. Cleanliness is important and all places have to be spic and span,” he said.

To overcome the shortage of trained guides in the country, the tourism institute has been asked to train 600 guides at the regional level, he said.

Union minister of state for chemicals and fertilisers Srikant Jena suggested that the tourism institute and the Institute of Hotel Management in the state should come together and form a university.

The tourism institute was established in the state in 1996. It had earlier been functioning from a building at Shishu Bhavan Square that was provided by the state government.

Named after freedom fighter Baji Rauta, the institute offers full-time postgraduate programmes in travel and tourism management.