Alfred Ford’s $250 million (£133 million) project in northern India has been approved by the Himachal Pradesh state government. The Himalayan Ski Village will feature 700 five-star rooms, 300 chalets, a handicraft village, and a food court. The basement car park of the five-star hotel will hold 1,000 vehicles and a high-tech gondola will lift 500 passengers every hour to an altitude of 14,000ft above sea level. The $250 million projects will be located in the Kullu Valley of Himachal Pradesh The project is expected to begin by the end of the year and will take three years in completion. The Chanchal Mountains remain under snow for around nine months in a year and European experts have described these slopes as ideal for skiing. According to them, if the infrastructure is developed in the area, the slopes could turn out to be the best in the entire western Himalayas.
In spite of Ford himself is a devotee of the Hindu god Krishna, the project had run into trouble after residents invoked Hindu gods to oppose the resort which they say will destroy traditional life in the Himalayas
Traditional wood-and-stone houses with sloping roofs will be designed in keeping with the traditional Himalayan architecture. The company is already carrying out a similar detailed survey of another project in the Kullu valley, overlooking the popular resort town of Manali.
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