TU 009

Tourism and Coastal Development

Chain of Facility Centres on the National Highway of Gujarat

Other Services

The building up of new roads and increased communication for business and tourism in the State of Gujarat has increased number of people who commute by road for business, professional, recreation purposes. The high traffic load and large distances has propagated the need for Facility Centres on the Highway. The Government of Gujarat has proposed to set up Chain of Facility Centres on the highways of the State.

These Facility Centres would offer a one stop solution to the commuters; it would offer services like parking lot, driver convenience rooms, night halts, cafeteria, convenience stores, restrooms etc.

The Private Player/s would build, own, operate and maintain the Facility Centres. A single party can also take up all the Facility Centres or multiple parties could take up the Centres.

Presently, Gujarat has a road network of 74,000 km; this includes 2,362 km of National Highways & State Highways measuring 19,180 km.

The Facility Centres would be located at regular intervals on the Highways. Gujarat has 6 major highways:

• Express Highway; E 1
• National Highways; NH 8, NH 8A, NH 8B, NH 8C
• Coastal Highway

These Facility Centres would be strategically located at important transit points from Surat, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Himatnagar, Rajkot, Junagadh, Bhavnagar, Mahuva, Veraval, Porbander, Dwarka, Jamnagar, Morbi, Bhachau and Bhuj.

The locations for the Facility Centres will be decided by the private parties and TCGL based on the availability of land/ TCGL properties.

The Facility Centres would include the following facilities:

• Convenience Store: The convenience store would sell snacks, confectionery, convenience foods, toiletries, select range of branded groceries and other FMCG products.
• Pharmacy: The Facility Centre would have pharmacy.
• Communication Facilities: The Facility Centre would offer communication facilities like telephone booths, cyber cafes, fax etc.
• Restrooms: The proposed project would have restrooms with facilities like bathrooms with hot water & rest areas.
• Cafeteria & Drive-Thrus: The cafeteria would serve multi-cuisine delicacies & refreshments. It would also have a drive-thru counter.
• ATM Facility: The Facility Centre would offer ATMs & banking facilities.

To enable the private party to make the aforementioned investments, TCGL would facilitate it in obtaining necessary permissions / registrations from concerned departments of the State or Central Government. It would also assist in availing incentives under various schemes announced by the State or Central Government as applicable.

The Government of Gujarat / TCGL would assist in providing basic infrastructure facilities like land, power, road, water supply etc. It would also facilitate the private party in obtaining statutory approvals for establishing and efficiently implementing the project in accordance with the policy of the State.

The estimated cost for the one such Facility Centre is given below. It is proposed to set up 20 such facility centres across the highways:

The total cost of the Chain of Facility Centres would be determined after the deciding the final number of facility centres to be set-up in the State.

Road infrastructure has become a major demand driver for the travel & tourism sector in the State, especially with the Express Highways, Golden Quadrilateral & North-South East-West Corridors coming up at a rapid pace. With better automobiles and good roads people now prefer road transport if the option is available.

The NH8 and Coastal Highway of Gujarat witness the heavy traffic flow during the year. There are very few Amenity/ Convenience/ Facility Centres on these highways. Therefore the proposed Chain of Facility Centres can expect the high number of footfalls. These Centres will also make road travel more convenient & travel friendly thereby promoting the local & domestic tourist flow.

Tourism Corporation of Gujarat Limited