Bhubaneswar: The state government has set up a special single-widow clearance committee to expedite clearance of investment proposals for tourism-related projects, tourism minister Ashok Chandra Panda said on Thursday.

The committee will only clear tourism-related projects with an investment proposal of up to Rs 50 crore.

The committee is headed by the state's chief secretary, while the additional chief secretary of revenue and secretaries of tourism, industries, forest and environment, and micro, small and medium enterprise departments are its members. Besides, representatives from various government agencies, such as the Odisha State Pollution Control Board, the Bhubaneswar Development Authority and the Chilika Development Authority are also there in the panel.

The committee exercises powers and functions as enjoyed by the State-Level Single-Window Clearance Authority set up under the Odisha Industries Facilitation Act.

Odisha has a huge potential to attract tourists and there has been an increase in tourist footfall over the years due to various tourism promotion activities. Yet, the arrival of only 1 lakh foreign tourists to the state every year is too meagre (just 0.98 percent of the all-India figure of 1.01 crore). To attract more tourists, especially foreigners, the state government has come up with a new tourism policy to woo investments to upgrade tourism infrastructure and set up various attractive tourism-related projects - such as heritage hotels, resorts, heath hubs, wellness centres and adventure sports zones.

The Odisha Tourism Policy, 2016, has offered to give a capital investment subsidy of 20 per cent (maximum up to Rs 10 crore) for investment up to Rs 50 crore and a sum of maximum Rs 15 crore for investment above Rs 50 crore. Besides, incentives in shape of additional subsidy, interest subsidy, stamp duty exemption, reimbursement of land conversion charge, VAT, entry tax and entertainment tax and exemption of electricity duty have also been offered.