Would you want to stay at Mirzapur’s historic Chunar Fort alongside the Ganga or at Lucknow’s majestic Chattar Manzil, the former palace of the Nawabs? This could soon be possible as the Uttar Pradesh government is planning to convert 10 historic forts and heritage monuments into hotels or resorts.
News18 has accessed a bid floated by the state government this week asking for a consultant to prepare feasibility reports for this exercise. According to the document, the idea is to “promote Adaptive Re-Use of Identified Forts for converting them as Heritage Properties for use as Hotels, Resorts etc by retaining the heritage character of the identified forts.” It says 10 forts and historical monuments of historical importance in the state have been identified to promote them as centers of tourist activities, augmenting value creation and employment generation in UP.
These places are Chattar Manzil in Lucknow, Chunar Fort in Mirzapur, Kothi Gulistan-e-Iram in Lucknow, Kothi Roshan ud Daula in Lucknow, Barua Sagar Kila in Jhansi, Kothi Darshan Vilas in Lucknow, Tikait Rai Baradari in Bithoor near Kanpur, Shukla Talab in Kanpur, Barsana Jalmahal in Mathura and the Raghunath Rao Mahal in Jhansi. The above-mentioned Lucknow buildings all date back to the era of the Nawabs of Awadh, the Bar Sagar Kila was the summer palace of Rani Lakshmi Bai, Shukla Talab in Kanpur is linked to India’s first war of Independence in 1857 and Tantia Tope while the Barsana Jalmahal in Mathura is linked to Radha Rani and is a 5-storey palace built in the water.
How to Leverage Tourism
The consultant has been asked to assess the tourism potential of the region for re-use and re-purposing of the identified forts to assess location strengths and constraints, analyse the investment potential, conduct stakeholder consultations to gauge market prospects, future growth trends, and concerns and expectations on the Project and identify parameters that would improve the attractiveness of the proposed concept. The consultant will also assess the transport connectivity — road, rail and airstrip or airport.
The idea behind the move is leveraging tourism as engine of growth to create regional economic development and epicentre of employment generation, creating an ecosystem for Urban and Tourism development and create opportunities for private sector to develop tourism and allied infrastructure, the document says. The UP government says this will bring socio-economic benefits to the community and preserve, enrich and promote Uttar Pradesh’s unique cultural heritage, natural resources and environment in an effective and a well-coordinated manner.
A Concept Plan shall be developed for the proposed project/fort area and will be supported by benchmarking examples from national and international best practices. The concept plan shall propose conservation plan for the fort and it nearby identified areas, planning intervention for re-adaptive uses and the proposed plan having a good revenue potential to attract private investments and tourist footfall, the bid document has mentioned.
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