In a bid to make Capitol Complex more approachable to the tourists, the work for construction of a tourist information centre finally begun on Thursday.
The foundation stone of tourist information centre (TIC) was laid by KK Sharma, Adviser to the Administrator on Thursday.
The move to construct TIC is aimed at providing hassle free procedure to the tourists to seek permission to visit the monumental structures in the Complex. The project of TIC was mooted about five years back.
The tourist information centre would come up at the site located on Jan Marg near Capitol Complex, Sector 1 on the heritage path along midway between rotary of Uttar Marg/Jan Marg and rotary near Secretariat on right hand side.
A senior official of the UT Administration said that the necessity of tourist information centre has been felt as lots of tourists visit Capitol Complex to explore the architecture tourism by visiting architectural edifices planned by city’s creator French Architect le Corbusier. The tourism official will issue permits to visit the buildings of Secretariat, legislative Assembly, High Court and also to facilitate foreign as well as domestic tourists coming to Chandigarh at the proposed tourist information centre at Capitol Complex here.
This building has been designed under the guidance of MN Sharma, first Indian chief architect of union territory of Chandigarh and former Secretary, UT Architecture and Urban Planning.
According to the statistics with UT Tourism Department, about 2334 foreign and domestic tourists had visited the Capitol Complex from April 2012 till May 2013. And, about 901 permissions have been issued from Tourism Department and its offices since last one year.