Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu launched the ‘New Tourism Policy-2015-20‘ function in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh with support from various government departments, industry experts, inputs from Indian School of Business and consultancy firm KPMG
Aim: To develop AP as one of the most preferred tourist destinations through sustained investments, robust infrastructure projects and services, and provides world-class tourist experience.
Objective
– Facilitate investments of Rs 10,000 crore in the tourism sector.
– Raise its contribution to 7 per cent of the state GDP
– Create 5 lakh additional jobs by 2020.
Highlights
– Leading tour operators from across the country signed MOUs with the state government entailing Rs 3,845 crore of investments.
– Policy coupled with tourism opportunities is to attract projects under the public-private participation (PPP) mode.
– Projects with investment above Rs 200 crore will be treated as mega tourism projects.
– The document provides incentives like reduction in VAT from 14 to 5 per cent, reimbursement of land registration charges, waiver of entertainment tax for three years and lower rate of electricity tariff, among others, for tourism plans.
Setting up of Govt bodies
– State Economic Development Body to serve as an apex level decision making body
– Green & Landscape Corporation and Swachh Andhra Corporation – to improve forest cover and promote cleanliness and also to constitute the
Investment Subsidy
– Various tourism services will be entitled to investment subsidy of 5-15 per cent of the total project cost and the Government will support the same by building complimentary linkage infrastructure.
– State may also provide additional support if the tourism project entails investment of over RS 20 crore.
The tourism projects will be entitled to 100 per cent reimbursement on registration and stamp duty, VAT rebates, lower energy tariffs and industry status for specified purposes.