Puri: Tourists visiting Satpada, located in the southern part of Chilika lake and home to the Irrawaddy dolphins, are in for pleasant news as the district administration has chalked out a slew of plans to ensure their safety and also to prevent them from being fleeced by the motor boat owners.
A slew of plans, aimed at curbing the inconvenience faced by tourists visiting the Chilika Lake, has been tabled for discussions at the SP office here Tuesday.
A state-of-the-art help desk centre would come up at Dahikhia to offer assistance to the tourists under one roof. Apart from toilets and parking facilities, the help desk would house ticket counters of eight motor boat associations of the area. This would help reduce the tendency of the motor boat owners to charge heft amounts for lake rides.
The centre, which would be built by Chilika Development Authority (CDA), would be operational by December end. The Brahmagiri tesildar would identify land and CDA will get the land possession in advance, the meeting resolved.
Sources said, a wide array of migratory birds come to Chilika between November and April every year and enhances the scenic beauty of the lake. Satpada, a major tourist attraction due to dolphins, witnesses a huge footfall from far-off places.
Around 967 motor boats of eight motor boat associations ferry the tourists to and fro Satpada. Most of them operate without valid registration and licences.
The meeting decided to get the motor boats registered and insured before December 31 in an attempt to avoid any untoward incident.
“Boat owners who fail to comply with the same will be barred from operating for a year,” an official who attended the meet pointed out. The Inland Waterways Authority of India would hold temporary camps till December 31 for the same. The camp will remain open thrice a week – the days to be notified soon, a source said.
Sources said, in 2014 the district administration had prescribed varying tariffs for dolphin-watching – particularly in the sea mouth – and Nalabana in Chilika which attracts most of the winged guests.
Although, restrictions were later imposed on boat services and tourist visits to Nalabana, the authorities did not remove the old rate chart. As a result, most of the tourists who were ignorant of the ban came to be fooled by the boat owners who used to take them to other places and extort money.
The existing tariff for viewing dolphins is `700 while for watching dolphins in the sea mouth would be `1700. Amid frequent rise in fuel prices, it has also been decided to restructure the existing rates.
The meeting decided to put up signboards across 30 locations on the Puri-Satpada Road and display revised boat fares. Leaflets would be distributed containing dos and don’ts for tourists.
Additional SP Jagannath Pradhan, district tourism officer Bijay Kumar Jena, Inland Waterways Authority of India’s assistant engineer (Mech) Pradip Kumar Das, CDA officer SK Mohanty, Chilika wildlife
division ACF PK Mohanty, Brahmagiri tehsildar Nitiranjan Sen, Bramhagiri IIC and member of eight motor boat associations were present at this
important meeting.
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