Funds crunch to delay opening of tourism complex in Coimbatore

COIMBATORE: The opening of government owned Yatri Nivas and Integrated Tourism Complex at Valparai will be further delayed due to funds crunch. They are short on funds to build a compound wall around the two buildings constructed to promote tourism in the hill station in 2013.
After lack of funds for furnishing, it is now lack of funds to build a compound wall that is delaying the opening of the Government owned Yatri Nivas and Integrated Tourism Complex in Valparai.The two buildings, constructed to promote the dwindling tourism in the hill station, were completed in 2013, but are yet to open.
Collectorate officials told TOI that Valparai municipality has written to the state government, seeking Rs1.3crore to build a 300m long compound wall around the two buildings. "The municipality is waiting for this fund to come through. Once it reaches us, we will start work on the wall and open the building,” said district revenue officer and collector in charge, Christraj.
The municipality has been working on mobilizing funds for this compound wall since May-end. After almost one and half years of remaining locked up, the two buildings were transferred from the tourism department to the local municipality so that they could use some local funds to lend the finishing touches. "The tourism department could not open the buildings they built, because they ran out of funds to furnish them,” said an official in the Valparai municipality. Though funds came through later in 2014, work to furnish them had not yet begun.
In May-end, the government also ordered the municipality to open them to tourists as soon as possible. However, the two buildings could not capitalize on the "Kodai Vizha” organized exclusively to promote tourism because the GO came just two days before the festival began. The then municipal commissioner admitted that all the work on the building had not yet been completed.
However, the local body might have a huge task at hand because both the buildings, despite lying shut for two years, have already begun deteriorating. When TOI visited the two buildings five months ago, there was dense overgrowth of grass and shrubbery across the plot half covered with cow dung. Large cracks could be seen outside the Integrated Tourism Complex walls and inside the Yatri Nivas walls around its courtyard.