PESHAWAR: The Tourism Corporation Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has leased a piece of land to a firm for construction of five and three star hotels and a skiing resort at Malam Jabba to boost tourism in the area.

In 2008, a hotel and skiing resort was burnt down by militants at Malam Jabba.

An MoU signing ceremony was held at the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa House in Islamabad, according to a press release issued here on Friday.

Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, advisor to CM on tourism Amjad Afridi, secretary tourism Mohammad Azam Khan, Board of Investment and Trade vice chairman Mohsin Aziz, TCKP managing director Mushtaq Ahmad Khan, and representatives of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa based Samson Groups of Companies were in attendance.

The lease has been given for a period of 33 years and extendable for another 20 years.

The news release said that TCKP offered five acres of land for construction of two hotels to cater to the needs of tourists of different income groups, whereas huge surrounding area of 270-acres of land was leased for establishment of a skiing resort.

According to the lease agreement, the lessee would construct a five-star hotel comprising 60 rooms, besides a three-star hotel with 20-30 rooms having facilities like health club and conference and symposium halls.

The firm would develop ski resort with all allied facilities and develop a dual purpose chairlift for serving skiers and general tourists during winter as well as in summer.

The lease amount would be Rs12 million per annum, which will be enhanced at rate of 10 per cent each year during the initial lease period of 33 years.

The first two years, construction phase, would be treated as ‘grace period’ with no lease amount to be charged.

Thereafter, one year lease amount would be paid in advance by the lessee on signing of lease agreement that could be forfeited if start of the project didn’t take place as per schedule.

The work on construction of a three-star hotel is expected to start this month.

Published in Dawn, September 06th, 2014