Tourists flocking to Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary for a cosy winter stay can hope for fewer accommodation woes.

The state forest department has turned a guesthouse near the main entrance in Makulakocha into a luxury address keeping in mind the winter footfall at the elephant abode 30km from the steel city.

The four-room forest guesthouse is ready for tourists. The rooms have attached toilets, a large kitchen-cum-hall, and ample space in the front. The rooms and toilets as well as the kitchen space have glazed tiles. New beds, mattresses and blankets are also in place.

The state forest department will shortly fix the tariff.

Dalma range officer (west) Dinesh Chandra said air- conditioners would shortly be installed at the guesthouse. “We have already procured the air-conditioners which are awaiting installation. The initiative has been taken keeping in mind winter rush of the tourists,” he said.

Accommodation options at the Dalma sanctuary — four AC cottages and three non-AC rooms, bamboo huts and mud cottages at Makulakocha as well as three non-AC rooms near Pinderbera forest guesthouse on the top — generally remain out of bounds for tourists from Jharkhand, Bengal, Odisha and Chhatisgarh during winter when there is rush from local tourists.

The guesthouse at Makulakocha was essentially meant for forest officers and guests (read government officers and their counterparts from the judiciary) earlier .

In the past, non-bureaucratic tourists, though, were given rooms on the few rare occasions if rooms were available. Now it is exclusively meant for them.

Village youths will be deployed as security guards at the guesthouse.

With elephants ambling back home from the annual sojourn to the jungles of West Midnapore and Bankura in Bengal, tourists will have their eyes full when it comes to enjoying their stay.