PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government on Tuesday approved to handover five more rest houses to the provincial tourism authority for the promotion of tourism in the province.
The KP government had earlier decided to hand over all 169 government rest houses in the province to the tourism authority so as to provide better accommodation to national and foreign tourists. Under this policy, several government rest houses at various tourist destinations have already been handed over to the tourism authorities.
According to Chief Minister’s Information Adviser Kamran Bangash, the provincial cabinet has approved the outsourcing and online booking of five rest houses in Galyat. “These include Speaker Himalaya Rest House, Police IG House, Karnak House, while the remaining two rest houses — Governor House and Chief Minister’s House — will be handed over to the tourism authority after renovation.”
It may be mentioned that a total of 169 rest houses were decided to be handed over to tourism authority, of which 48 rest houses have so far been advertised for outsourcing purposes. The second phase includes 80 rest houses, including Swat Srinagar Hotel where the decoration work is in full swing.
According to informed sources, the tourism authority would earn millions of rupees for the national exchequer by using these rest houses for tourism. Earlier, these rest houses were under the use of the different government departments and were only used by the government officials.
Despite spending millions of rupees annually on the renovation of government rest houses, there was no income generated from them, sources said.
In addition to the provision of necessary funds for promotion of tourism, the provincial cabinet has approved construction of the 48km Kalam-Kamrat Road, 52km Thal-Patrak Road, and 14km Thal-Jazbanda Road.
