Jayalalithaa and Naveen at the recent chief ministers’ meet on NCTC in New Delhi.

Bhubaneswar, May 9: Another episode of the newfound bonhomie between chief minister Naveen Patnaik and his Tamil Nadu counterpart Jayalalithaa will unfold on Friday and simultaneously, Odias visiting Chennai will have reason to cheer.

Those planning to visit the southern city will no longer have trouble finding comfortable accommodation at a reasonable rate. In the not-so-distant future, Odisha will have its own guesthouse — Odisha Bhavan — in Chennai.

The guesthouse is expected to be ready within the next two years.

The Tamil Nadu government has provided a 35 decimal plot to the Odisha government at Pallikarani village, Tambram taluk, in Kanchipuram district at an affordable rate of Rs 1.06 crore.

“Keeping in view the increasing number of people going to Chennai from Odisha for medical treatment, the state government has decided to set up Odisha Bhavan on the lines of the facility in New Delhi,” said a government official.

Naveen will fly to Chennai tomorrow to attend a programme to be held for the purpose. The programme will be held on Friday morning on the campus of Madras University instead of the proposed site because of security reasons. The land for the project is yet to be acquired.

The state government has invited Jayalalithaa to attend the programme and she has reportedly agreed.

Naveen’s meeting with Jayalalithaa assumes significance in view of the state’s opposition to the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) in its present form. To step up pressure on the Centre to bring amendments to it, Naveen had already suggested that a sub-committee of chief ministers under the chairmanship of his Tamil Nadu counterpart Jayalalithaa be set up to address the concerns of the state governments with regard to NCTC.

Sources said Jayalalithaa was also likely to invite Naveen either for lunch or dinner during his two-day stay in Chennai to further discuss the NCTC issue.

After reaching Chennai on Thursday, Naveen will attend some other programmes. Prominent among them is a programme being organised by the MS Swaminathan Foundation on kalajira rice and seaweed cultivation. On Friday, he will attend the foundation laying ceremony of the Odisha Bhavan and return to Odisha.

This will be the fourth official guesthouse of the state government outside Odisha. The state now has Odisha Bhavan and Odisha Nivas in New Delhi. Utkal Bhavan serves the needs of people going to Calcutta. The newly-built Odisha Bhavan in Mumbai has eight rooms for cancer patients, and 20 rooms and two dormitories for the general public.