Bathery guest house remains closed months after high-profile opening
Despite its inauguration in February, Kerala’s new twenty-two crore rupee Bathery Guest House remains closed to tourists because the executing agency has failed to secure a building number and transfer ownership.
Despite its inauguration in February, Kerala’s new twenty-two crore rupee Bathery Guest House remains closed to tourists because the executing agency has failed to secure a building number and transfer ownership.
Despite its inauguration in February, Kerala’s new twenty-two crore rupee Bathery Guest House remains closed to tourists because the executing agency has failed to secure a building number and transfer ownership.
Bathery: Construction crawled at a snail's pace for a decade and a half, and months have rolled by since its high-profile inauguration, yet the new block of the Bathery Guest House remains strictly out of bounds for visitors. Built at an outlay of ₹22 crore, the project took 15 long years to reach completion.
Sources reveal that the executing agency, KITCO, has failed to secure a building number from the local body and formally hand over the property to the Tourism Department. Without this mandatory number, permanent electricity connections and other vital utilities cannot be commissioned. Notably, this is slated to be one of the largest government guest houses in Kerala.
The foundation stone was laid back in 2010 by the then Tourism Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan. The finished structure was finally inaugurated this past February by the then Tourism Minister P A Mohamed Riyas. Yet, months later, administrative inertia persists. Tourists cannot book rooms online, sparking widespread criticism that such callousness is dealing an avoidable blow to Wayanad’s tourism sector.
Spread across four floors, the modern complex boasts 52 rooms, a conference hall, and a restaurant. Every room has been fully furnished and fitted out, but with the building remaining shuttered, these expensive amenities risk falling into ruin and gathering dust. Frustrated locals and industry stakeholders are now urging the local MLA to intervene and break the bureaucratic deadlock.