Bhopal: Grant approved for homestay in rural tourism project

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The Cabinet approved grant for construction/upgradation of home-stays in selected villages under Rural Tourism Project of Tourism Department. According to the approval, 40 percent subsidy of the cost of construction of new homestay up to a maximum of Rs 2 lakh and 40 per cent grant of up-gradation of the homestay up to a maximum of Rs 1.20 lakh (whichever is less) will be payable to the beneficiary in two instalments.

The homestays established under Rural Tourism will have to be registered in the concerned scheme as per rules out of 4 schemes run by Madhya Pradesh Tourism Board. In the first phase of the project, tourism activities will be conducted in about 100 villages to make the tourists experience the rural environment. In this 1000 homestay rooms will be constructed/upgraded to provide residential facilities to tourists in 1000 families at the rate of about 10 families per village.

This will directly and indirectly provide employment to 20,000 rural families. The major components of rural tourism project include better accommodation, local cuisine, art and handicrafts, folk music and dance, local sports and skill upgradation. After the first phase, new villages can be selected in the rural tourism project as per requirement in the second phase.

CM Gramin Path Vendor Loan Scheme extended

The state Cabinet decided to extend the period of Chief Minister’s Gramin Path Vendor Loan Scheme by 2 years (till March 31, 2024). In the scheme, a target has been set to benefit 2 lakh beneficiaries for the year 2022-23 and 2 lakh for the year 2023-24. The scheme was implemented from 28 July 2020. In the year 2020-21 and 2021-22, a total of 3.14 lakh rural street vendor beneficiaries have been provided interest free loan of Rs 10,000 per beneficiary by the banks.