Plans afoot to explore mine tourism in Telangana

​Kothagudem (Khammam): In a bid to explore new horizons in tourism development in the region, a plan is on the anvil to develop abandoned mines as a tourist destination on the lines of Eco Mine Tourism project between the Saoner and Gondegaon mines initiated by the Western Coalfields Ltd (WCL) near Nagpur in Maharashtra.

Under this proposed project, a few coal mines of the state-owned Singareni Company Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) will be developed into eco parks besides throwing them open for public. It’s like an industrial tour, the engineering students undertake to gain hands-on experience related to their academic field. In similar lines, the mine tourism will give an opportunity for a layman to learn how the mining operations are carried in an underground mine and as well as in an opencast mine.

“The project is expected to take a shape in about a couple of months,” Kothagudem MLA Jalagam Venkat Rao, who is pursuing the matter with the Singareni management, told The Hans India. This would give a huge fillip to tourism development in the region in addition to captivating beauty of the Kinnerasani Wildlife Sanctuary, dam and boating facility, Rao, who is instrumental behind many initiatives in the coal town Kothagudem, said.

District Tourism Officer Suman Chakravarthy said: “Mine tourism has a lot of potential as it could provide a life time experience to tourists with the authorities providing them all the gear that a miner equips with before venturing inside an underground mine.”