Heli-tourism gets a push in Vizag

** An official team inspects suitable area in Vuda Park for helipad
** Govt wants to exploit helicopter tourism, which has good potential in the district
** The idea is to let tourists have an aerial view of the City of Destiny ‘Vizag’
** The commercial ‘joy ride’ will begin soon
** Depending on the success of this initiative, the authorities are keen on making the sorties a permanent affair

Visakhapatnam: In view of the State government’s initiative to make Vizag as the main tourism hub by promoting boat cruise from the new Slipway Jetty, Fishing Harbour and heli-tourism from the Vuda Park, an official team comprising Tourism Officer VVVS Lakshmana Rao, District Forest Officer Bhavani Sankar and a representative of M/s Scrichapar company, Chandrasekhar visited Vuda Park to inspect a suitable site for making permanent arrangements for a helipad.

Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu is also very particular to develop tourism so as to attract foreign tourists whose flow has been increasing steadily. When he attended the International Fleet Review, the Chief Minister opened the Slipway Jetty at the fishing harbour here to introduce corporate boat cruise. However, when HRD Minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao was about to launch the boat cruise soon after the IFR, the fisher folk have opposed it. The boat cruise project was put in abeyance for the time being.

Official sources said that with regard to the heli-tourism, an agreement has already been reached between Andhra Pradesh Tourism and M/S Scrichapar company and as a part of it, the team has examined two suitable sites for safe takeoff and safe landing here on Saturday.

It was learnt that in the first phase, the heli-tourism project has been designed to take the tourists from Vuda Park to make them see the city covering important areas in a copter.

In the second phase of the package, the tourists will be taken from Vuda Park to Araku. The first phase of heli-tourism works would be completed in a couple of months.