Ambuja Neotia and IHCL plan up to Rs 3,000 crore for nine hotel projects across Bengal

Kolkata's Ambuja Neotia group and the Tata group's Indian Hotels Company (IHCL) plan to invest up to Rs 3,000 crore over the next five to seven years in nine new hospitality projects across West Bengal, from Kolkata to the Darjeeling hills, the companies announced in Kolkata on Saturday, PTI reported.

The partners also opened two hotels under IHCL's SeleQtions brand, AltAir House in Kolkata and AltAir House in Siliguri. They run 11 projects in the state now; the number will rise to 20 once the nine new ones are complete, according to the PTI report carried by Millennium Post.

What is planned

The pipeline set out by the companies, as reported by PTI, includes:

• in Kolkata, Taj Ananta Kutir and Taj Uvanta Signature Residences, with 248 hotel rooms ("keys") and 354 apartments;
• at Ghoom near Darjeeling, Taj Himya Kutir, with 57 keys and 10 villas;
• in Siliguri, Taj Terai Kutir, with 140 keys;
• a Rs 100-crore expansion of Taj Chia Kutir in Darjeeling, adding 28 keys and about 15,000 sq ft of banqueting space;
• further projects at Raichak, Digha, Lataguri and Kalimpong.

The PTI copy gives the total both as about Rs 3,000 crore and as Rs 2,700-3,000 crore. The group has previously spoken of a broader plan of about Rs 15,000 crore across hospitality, healthcare and real estate, so not all of this is new money.

What they said

"West Bengal offers an extraordinary diversity of landscapes and cultural experiences," said Harshavardhan Neotia, chairman of Ambuja Neotia. IHCL managing director and chief executive Puneet Chhatwal said the projects would build tourism infrastructure and create "a lot of employment and income stream for the state". Neotia said he had recently met Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari.

The policy backdrop

The announcement comes as the state government prepares a new industrial policy. The Cabinet cleared a draft on 28 October, and the policy will be announced after an administrative review at Nabanna on 5 November, IANS reported, citing an unnamed official. The official said the draft focuses on removing unnecessary regulation and speeding up approvals, and that it may bring back incentives for industry in backward areas that the previous Trinamool Congress government had discontinued, such as electricity tariff waivers in a project's early years, help with loan interest and reimbursement of employees' provident fund contributions. The government has not published the draft.

On Saturday, NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Ashok Lahiri told reporters in Kolkata that he expected "definite improvements" in Bengal's regulatory regime, ANI reported.

Why it matters

North Bengal's hills and the Dooars are among the state's biggest tourism draws, and new hotels in Siliguri, Lataguri and Kalimpong would add rooms in places where demand peaks sharply in the holiday seasons. Large hotel projects take years to build, and the timelines given are for completion over five to seven years.

What happens next

The Nabanna review on 5 November is the next step for the industrial policy. The companies did not give opening dates for the individual projects.