Agartala, April 18 (Agency) Tripura Tourism Development Corporation hosted an interface meeting of tour operators of Bangladesh and other states of Northeast, West Bengal and Delhi on Monday here to finalise the strategies to boost tourism business in the region. The tourism officials said as many as 25 major tourism entrepreneurs from different parts of India and Bangladesh have joined the second edition of three-day Bharat-Bangladesh Tourism Festival at Ujjayanta Palace, which was inaugurated by Tripura Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Dev Varma accompanied by Member of Bangladesh parliament Dr Md Abdus Sahid on Sunday evening. “The tour operators have agreed to sign memorandum of understandings for package tours, begin bus services with other northeastern destinations, cultural exchange programmes and launch campaign on tourism potential of Northeast and Bangladesh. At the end of the festival on Tuesday several MoUs are expected to be signed among the northeastern states and with the tour operators of North India and Bangladesh,” officials said.
However, in the inauguration Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Dev Varma highlighted the tourism opportunities of Northeast with neighbouring countries and among the states while Dr Sahid focused on natural beauty, beaches, food and cultural places and activities of Bangladesh to attract the tourists from Northeastern region and West Bengal. “The people of Bangladesh feel like home in Tripura because of language, food habits and cultural affinity. Similarly, people here in Bangladesh feel like coming home. Tripura and Bangladesh are divided in land but feelings and emotions to each other remained the same that encouraged the government of two countries to explore the opportunities of trade, commerce and different exchange programmes,” Dev Varma pointed out. He further stated that a few hundreds of Bangladesh nationals use Agartala as a corridor of their travel to Indian states everyday.
A large number of people from Bangladesh are travelling South India, West Bengal, Delhi and Mumbai through Agartala airport and the Indian government is planning to run international flights from here to South Asian destinations via Bangladesh cities. Narendra Modi government has supported us to build SEZ in southern bordering town Sabroom to bring investment from neighbouring countries taking the advantage of Chittagong sea port, which is only 70 kilometres from Tripura border and now a bridge over River Feni, is opened,” Dev Varma added. Meanwhile, Dr Sahid recalled the contribution of Tripura to the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 and reiterated that Bangladesh government is keen to further strengthen the relation with Tripura and other Indian states. Bangladesh has already liberalized the visa regime and lifted several trade restrictions for India. “Tourism is one of the soft industries where the economies of both the countries will grow mutually and also, opening up an opportunity for other South East Asian countries to invest and to get involved in tourism business in the region. If things move in order, it is not far to announce a South Asian tourism circuit with all the beautiful places of our neighbours,” Dr Sahid hoped.