Chhattisgarh government, which is planning to double visitors inflow in another two years, is looking for public private partnerships to strengthen its tourist service sector, Chhattisgarh Tourism Board Managing Director Tapesh Jha said.

"Our state has an abundance of natural beauty and is rich in minerals. To keep it intact we don't want to attract huge crowd and therefore we are targeting HNI. Our infrastructure is in place, now we want to strengthen our service sector, for which we are looking at private investment or on PPP model basis," Jha added.

With 125 tourism destinations, Chhattisgarh boasts of country's biggest waterfall Chitrakoot, its wildlife and forests that is second only to the Amazon forests. There are 75 government properties spread across the state, he said. Chhattisgarh Tourism Board is aggressively promoting the state as a retreat and plans to double the visitors inflow in next two years from the present 33 lakh, including domestic and foreign, Jha said.

At present, a large number of tourists visit the state for its religious destinations, however, the board is trying to build Chhattisgarh as an environment and ecology retreat. The state is visited by around 25,000 foreign tourists mainly from France, Germany, the US and the UK, Jha said, adding that the inflow is steadily growing every year.

Tourism also provides employment opportunity in rural and interior areas, he said. "Currently, more than 30,000 people are working in the sector in Chhattishgarh and as tourism grows, the employment opportunity will grow besides providing work especially to people in rural and interior areas," he added. To boost the sector further, the state government is also working on a holistic master plan, which is expected to be ready by 2013, Jha said.