Tourists skip Nizamabad

Hyderabad: Nizamabad is one of the important districts in TRS government’s scheme of things since Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao’s daughter and politician Kalvakuntla Kavitha was elected to Lok Sabha from this district.

She was influential in ensuring Centre to allot a commendable Rs 141 crore (in the recent rail budget) to complete the Peddapalli-Nizamabad line, works for which were going on since 1991.

However, Kavitha has her task cut-out to put Nizamabad on Telangana Toursim map. It’s due to lack of enough attention for the last several decades or failure to develop or promote tourist locations and circuits in the district, the footfall of tourists per month in this district is the lowest in the entire state.

This district has an area of 7,956 square km while according to 2011 census the population is 25,52,073 of which 23.06% live in urban areas. The main tourist spots in the district are few in number. Noted amongst them being Sri Ram Sagar Project (SRSP), Ali Sagar and Ashok Sagar and Badapahad.

Alisagar is 10 km from Nizamabad and 2 km off the Nizamabad-Basar road. The forest spread along with the summerhouse, well laid out gardens, hilltop guest house make it a favoured getaway. Deer park and facilities for boating and water sports are added attractions. Alisagar contributes a major chunk to tourist footfall of the entire district. However, even Alisagar cannot save Nizamabad from occupying rank bottom place in number of tourists visiting districts.

If we look at the number of domestic tourists (both inter and intra-state) who toured Nizamabad, it is dismal to say the least. The total number for the whole 2013 is a meagre 8623 while in 2014 it fell down to 6880. If we consider district-wise break up of last three months of 2014, the number of tourists in October stood at 726, while in November and December it was just 663 and 576 respectively.

This is in stark contrast to tourists who thronged remaining districts in Telangana. If we consider top three districts in December 2014, 9.8 lakh tourists visited the Greater Hyderabad (Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy districts), 8.5 lakh toured Karimnagar and 8.2 lakh tourists thronged Warangal district.

When contacted, officials of Telangana Tourism stated that Nizamabad was one of their main thrust areas for tourism development. Killa Ramalayam Fort, Kaulas Nala and Fort, enhancing tourist amenities near Alisagar are under consideration. Also the district collector sent proposals to develop few tourist locations, they said. Meanwhile, TRS MLA from Nizamabad (Urban) Ganesh Gupta felt the need to develop scenic tourist parks and cultural locations such as Lumbini Park or Shilparamam (in Hyderabad) to promote tourism.

Nizamabad is handicapped since it does not have noted temples or natural locations when compared to other districts, he felt. Take for example, Adilabad which has Basar Temple, Kuntala waterfalls and forests to promote eco tourism; in Karimnagar there are famous temples like Vemulawada, Kondagattu, Kaleshwaram and Dharmapuri etc.

So naturally, pilgrims will be regularly flocking these pilgrim centres in big numbers every month contributing to rise of tourist footfall.

The TRS MLA stated that his government would take all steps required to put Nizambad district on Telangana tourist map in the coming years.

By: Mahesh Avadhutha