Cable car with a restaurant inside from next year in Bandipur

By Amar Raj Naharki, Bandipur, Aug. 18: Bandipur, which has gained fame by the name of ‘Pahadki Rani,’ is set to add another feather in its cap: tourists visiting the place by cable car will be getting lodging and food facilities inside it come next year. 

According to Bandipur Cable Car and Tourism Limited, it will build a structure to add the facility inside the cable car, which is under construction.

Kiran Pokharel, executive officer of the company, said that to provide special pleasure to the tourists, a restaurant will be operated inside the cable car after the arrival and departure time alongside the facilities for eating and sleeping. He said the service will be provided every day after 5 pm.

Anyone can reserve a cable car and have fun inside. “As every tourist is looking for something new, we are going to launch a cable car with restaurant facilities,” Ramchandra Sharma, chairman of the company, said.

According to Sharma, it will take another six months to bring the cable car into operation. 

There will be 21 gondolas for sightseeing. These cable cars will have more transparent glass than those in others, so the tourists will get to enjoy the beauty, Sharma said.

He said that even though the normal cable car and the cable car with a restaurant normally look the same, they have different features and facilities inside. 

Sharma said that preparations were being made to keep 11 restro-gondolas and the design was being prepared by a German company, Cagi Technologies.

According to the company, passengers should book a restaurant car to enjoy the facility. Bookings are made for one hour at a time. The fee is Rs. 25,000 an hour, and eight people can seat in the gondola which can go up and down seven times in that period.

Sharma said, "Since you can sleep in the restaurant and enjoy it like a hammock, tourists will be able to enjoy it differently, so we expect more tourists to come to our facilities."

The cable car will be operated from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm while the restro-cable car will be operated from 5:00 pm to 9:00 pm, and will be able to serve 100 people a day. Sharma claimed the services will be one-of-a-kind in South Asia. To complete the facility with toilets inside the cable car, research is also being done to determine how much load it can bear, he informed.

According to Pokharel, even though preparations were being made to bring the cable car into operation from this year's Dashain, COVID-19 pandemic and a shortage of some equipment that should be brought from abroad upended the plan.  And the construction work is also delayed because of the extra facilities added to it.

Work is being done to bring the cable car into operation from the upcoming Nepali New Year (2080). 

Visitors will be able to travel a distance of 1.6km from the lower station in Thuldhunga in Bandipur Rural Municipality-4 to Baralthok in the same ward in seven minutes.  

Siddha Gufa in Bimalnagar, which is claimed to be the largest cave in Asia, and Bandipur, which is arguably the best settlement for natural scenery, are believed to be the centre of attraction for tourists.

According to the company, Rs.3 billion will be invested for the project, including in a four-star hotel. As the price of the goods has increased by at least 25 per cent compared to the estimation made earlier, the cost is likely to increase. A four-star hotel is also being built at the upper station and the 17-storey hotel is named 'Queen Tower'.

The main feature of the hotel is that from the 17th floor, you can view the beautiful places around Bandipur. According to the company, there will be 84 rooms in the Queen Tower. 

Pokharel informed that due to the increase in the capacity of cable cars and the hotel, the investment has also increased to Rs. 2.60 billion so far.

The capacity of the cable car will also be increased from 300 persons per hour at present to 500. The number of rooms in the upper station has been increased to 87 from 66.

Company to issue IPO

Meanwhile, the company has also announced that it will issue an IPO once the cable car comes into operation. An agreement has been made with the SBI Merchant for this.

Twenty per cent of the shares will be issued to the general public and 10 per cent will be given to the employees of the company. 

Similarly, shares have already been distributed to 1,400 people in Bandipur Cable Car. In this project, RKD Real Estate and Construction Limited and Tourism Investment Fund Limited have 61 per cent shares, Panchase Cable Car and Tours Limited has 25 per cent, and Bandipur Rural Municipality and other local investors have 14 per cent.