Coming Soon: Mussoorie-Doon ropeway

This initiative will reduce the travel time between the two cities to 30 minutes

In a bid to boost tourism sector in the state, the Uttarakhand government has decided to connect inaccessible areas, including famous Hindu shrines of Kedarnath and Yamunotri, with ropeways. Officials said the ropeways will help pilgrims and tourists visit most of the remote places which they cannot travel now due to arduous trek. For instance, the pilgrims have to undertake an arduous trek of 14 km to reach Kedarnath shrine (3,584 metre), cradled in the Garhwal Himalayas. A similar distance has to be covered by foot to visit Yamunotri shrine in Uttarkashi district. Some of the famous routes for the ropeways include Rishikesh-Neelkanth, Rambara-Kedarnath, Binsar Road-Kasardevi (Almora), Snow-view zoo at Nainital and Muni-Ki-Reti- Narendranagar. Mussoorie-Dehradun ropeway will reduce the travel time between the two places to just 30 minutes. The state tourism department is proposing altogether 17 ropeways at different places to strengthen infrastructure facilities. Bidding process for several of these ropeways has already started. New ropeways will be exempted from the payment of entertainment tax for a period of five years from commencement, says a tourism department progress report for the year 2009-10. For this purpose, the tourism department has roped in Uttarkhand Infrastructure Project Company (UIPC) Pvt Ltd, a joint venture between the state government and IL&FS besides U-DEC, a state government enterprise, to prepare DPRs of these projects and invite the developers.

The state government is also trying to develop George Everest Estate in Mussoorie as a hub for eco-tourism through the ropeway project where an investment of Rs 700-800 crore is proposed. The new project will be a gondola-type ropeway which will have the carrying capacity of taking 1,100 passengers per hour, the officials said, adding there would be 3-4 points where the cable car would halt for three-four minutes.

The officials said that at the halting points, the department has proposed to build amusement parks and budget hotels.