Tourism role of speaker’s summer house to end

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government has decided to hand over the Speaker House at the tourist spot Nathia Gali to the Assembly Secretariat which will be approved in the cabinet meeting scheduled for Friday (today).

In the past Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan had ordered handing over the government rest houses, speaker house, chief minister house and governor house to the tourism department to open them for tourists.

But now one by one they are being returned without any valid reasons.

After the Governor House in Nathia Gali, now the Speaker House (Himala House) is also being handed back to the Assembly Secretariat which will be approved in today’s (Friday) cabinet meeting after which the possession of the Speaker House will again be with the Assembly Secretariat.

It will be used by the speaker in summers and winters. It may be recalled that the K-P government opened up several government-owned guest houses to the public following a cabinet decision in August 2019.

However, the government decided to charge steep prices for a night’s stay in any of these sprawling mansions located close to scenic spots across K-P.

In a meeting of the K-P cabinet, it had been decided to open up all government-owned guesthouses, including official residences such as Chief Minister House, Governor House, K-P Assembly Speaker and Police House to the public and to allow the public to rent out rooms to stay in some of these properties to earn much-needed revenue for the government.

In this regard, it had been decided to open some 169 government guest houses located in tourist hot spots. “Around 49 guest houses will be opened for the public in the first phase,” then K-P’s Senior Tourism Minister Atif Khan told The Express Tribune over the phone.

However, the rates set by the provincial government in some instances are in line with some of the highest rates charged by the best private hotels in the province.

If anyone desired to spend a night in the historic Governor House in Nathia Gali and to enjoy the scenic views of the Hazara Division, it would set them back Rs40,000 for a room.

If they wished to book out all the eight rooms open to the public in the guest house, it would cost them Rs320,000 per night.

Similarly, the CM House has four rooms available and the government had decided to set the room rent at Rs24,000 per room in hopes of raising Rs96,000 per night at full occupancy.

The K-P Assembly Speaker House in Abbottabad has eight rooms available and the government had set the rent at Rs16,000 per room per night in hopes of raising a total of Rs128,000.

Similarly, the K-P Police House has eight rooms available and rent had been set at Rs12,000 per room per night to raise Rs96,000 at full occupancy.