Ooty: The Tamil Nadu Tourism Development Corporation (TTDC) is all set to lose is stranglehold on the canteen and the telescope house which it had been running for more than three decades at the Doddabetta peak, the highest peak in the state and a stellar tourist attraction, as forest department has asked the TTDC to vacate its campus on the peak to pave way for developing eco-tourism by an eco-development committee.
Sources in the TTDC said that the latest lease agreement for five-year term to run the canteen and telescope house expired last August and the forest department which has jurisdiction control over the land there declined to renew the lease. “Now the TTDC is in tangle over this issue and the top officials in Tourism department in Chennai are taking efforts to renew the lease agreement to continue this venture in the summit top at Doddabetta” sources added.
When contacted C.Bathrasamy, the district forest officer (DFO), Nilgiris North (in-charge), said that the forest department was not willing to renew the lease agreement for the TTDC which runs the canteen and telescope house at the peak which come under the Doddabetta reserve forest jurisdiction.
“We have already informed the TTDC to vacate. Though their lease time has expired already, since they remitted the lease amount, which made them eligible to run affairs till this fiscal, they may continue till March.
