“I have written to all seven resorts to close their operations inside the park from Thursday as lease contract couldn´t be renew till Wednesday -- the last day of 15-year contract,” Narendra Babu Pradhan told myrepublica.com on Wednesday. “No hotels operating inside the park will be allowed to lodge the tourists.”
However, tourists can enjoy jungle safari staying outside the park from Thursday.
Those resorts facing closure are Tiger Tops Jungle Lodge -- the first resort opened in Nepal, Machan Wildlife Camp, Chitwan Jungle Lodge, Gaida Wildlife Camp, Island Jungle Resort, Hotel Narayani Safari and Temple Tiger. Tiger Tops has been operating inside the park for last 45 years where as other resorts were opened during different times between late 1980s and early 1990s.
Park officials said they have no option but to close down the all seven hotels running under 15-year lease agreement.
“We have to follow the agreement between the park and hoteliers. So, we have no option but to close down all seven resorts and stop all tourist services being operated by them inside the park from Thursday,” said Pradhan. The 15-year lease contracts with existing big seven resorts operating inside the park expired July 15. Officials at MoFSE said decision on the fate of the big resorts couldn´t be made on time as consultation between the Ministry of Law, the MoFSC and the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation about the fate of park resorts has not completed.
With the closure of the resorts, the fate of over 700 workers has become uncertain. Those hotels were providing jungle safaris, maintaining around 40 elephants inside the park.
A source at MoFSE said, the ministry is preparing new contracts for operating hotels at the existing sites and four new sites inside the park.
The then government had arbitrarily extended lease contracts with the resorts against the existing National Park and Wildlife Conservation Regulations, which provide that the lease should be awarded through open competition.
A committee headed by Madhav Acharya, joint secretary at MoFSC, had few months back suggested different models for operating the existing resorts besides identifying sites for four new resort inside the park.
The committee had divided resorts into three categories and the royalty amount was fixed between Rs 6 million and Rs 10 million depending upon the site and the services.
The government was widely criticized from all quarters when it decided to extend the lease by 15 years in 1994. Conservationists have been blaming the resorts for destroying bio-diversity inside the park, which is also listed in the UNESCO´s World Natural Heritage Sites list.
They are paying yearly around Rs 45 million in royalties to the government and conservation fee to the Nepal Trust for Nature Conservation.
prabhakar@myrepublica.com
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