Buoyed by the success of the AAI Paragliding World Cup, which India hosted for the first time, the Himachal Pradesh government on Sunday announced the opening of the National Institute of paragliding and aerospace here.

Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh laid the foundation stone for the institute, which will aim at promoting the sport and also look to boost tourism in the state. The facility will cost Rs 9 crore.

The Paragliding World Cup that concluded on Saturday evoked a positive response from both the participants and the world body, who were impressed by the infrastructure and favourable weather conditions in the Bir-Billing district.

Michael Kueffer of Switerland, who won the World Cup title here on Saturday, termed it as the “best venue in the world” saying it was important to develop the place as a regular place for international competition.

“I was quite amazed by this facility,” Kueffer said. “The infrastructure is vast and it’s good to see people come to watch us. It doesn’t happen very often in our sport.”

The week-long tournament saw a lot of free flyers too, with some of them keen to take up paragliding as a profession.

The institute aims at felicitating the young talent and develop the area into a tourist hub.

CM Virbhadra said Bir was now considered as one of the world’s best paragliding sites after the sport began in a small way in the early 1980s.