Jungle Camps India Ltd. is a conservation-first hospitality company that builds and runs boutique wildlife lodges next to India’s most famous tiger reserves, turning the desire to see a tiger in the wild into a luxury, low-footprint stay. Founded in 2002 as a single property in Pench, it has spent over two decades quietly adding lodges along the forest corridors of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, each one designed to blend into the landscape rather than sit on top of it. The recurring approach is simple: put a small, high-touch hotel right where the wildlife is, run it on sustainable principles that earn third-party eco-certification, and make every guest experience feel personal - that is how the company competes against far larger hospitality chains.
Business segments
A single engine today - a collection of owner-operated wildlife lodges - with a managed-properties arm and a pipeline of new builds that will add cultural and leisure tourism to the conservation core.
1. Owner-operated wildlife lodges: the conservationist’s hotel collection
Four lodges inside or beside tiger country, each with 12 to 30 rooms, where guests pay for a full-board nature immersion - and every property carries the TOFTigers eco-accreditation that few Indian hotels achieve.
- Rooms sold as an experience, not just a bed - every stay bundles accommodation, meals, and guided activities such as wildlife safaris, nature walks, bird watching, and tribal dance evenings, so the lodge captures the full trip spend rather than just the room rate.
- Sustainability is audited, not just claimed - all operational lodges are certified by TOFTigers, a global alliance that audits wildlife lodges on environmental and community standards, and the company backs this with a written Sustainability Action Plan, a dedicated coordinator, renewable energy, waste segregation, and over 90% FSC-certified office paper.
- Guests come through platforms, but the brand is moving direct - distribution today relies on online travel agents and booking platforms, while the company is building its own digital marketing and loyalty programs to reduce intermediary commissions and own the customer relationship.
- Staff are local, and that matters in the forest - with roughly 108 permanent employees as of March 2025, the company hires from the rural communities around its lodges, invests in upskilling, and puts everyone on formal contracts, which builds the kind of long-tenure team that returning guests recognise.
2. Managed properties and government contracts: the brand on someone else’s real estate
Two recent wins - a private heritage lodge in Bandhavgarh and a state-government rest house in Uttarakhand - extend the Jungle Camps name to new tiger territory without the capital burden of buying land.
- Management fee without the build cost - a five-year contract signed in May 2026 gives the company operational control of Palash Kothi, a 20-room property on 25 acres near Bandhavgarh’s Tala Gate, which the owner is renovating and Jungle Camps will run under the name “Palash Kothi by Jungle Camps India” from June 2026.
- Government concession with a decade of visibility - the Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board awarded the company a ten-year contract (extendable by up to five years) to operate, maintain and manage the Tourist Rest House at Devprayag, for an annual fee of about Rs. 28 lakh escalating at 3% per year, with a Rs. 25 lakh performance security required before signing.
3. Projects under development: the pipeline that adds temples and forts to the tiger map
Five projects at various stages - from a 105-room Mathura hotel to a heritage fort in Sheopur - will move the company beyond pure wildlife into cultural and leisure tourism, funded partly by IPO proceeds and partly by subsidiary-level investment.
- Mathura: a big bet on pilgrimage tourism - through the wholly owned subsidiary Madhuvan Hospitality, the company is building a 105-room hotel with a 200-person banquet hall, a 160-seat restaurant, and basement parking for 80 cars, after technical assessment showed the site could support nearly double the original 60-room plan; the hotel is proposed to start in April 2026, backed by a Rs. 22.5 crore corporate guarantee to HDFC Bank and a further Rs. 3 crore equity infusion in June 2025.
- Sanjay Dubri and Sheopur: heritage enters the portfolio - a heritage hotel is being developed at Sanjay Dubri Tiger Reserve, and IPO funds originally earmarked for a now-surrendered Parsili lease have been reallocated to a 90-year lease for a fort heritage hotel at Sheopur, where construction has already begun.
- Ratapani: the next wildlife lodge, structured through a subsidiary - a new lodge near Bhopal is targeted to open in October 2028 via the wholly owned subsidiary Jungle Camps India (Kolar) Pvt. Ltd., incorporated during FY25 with an initial Rs. 50 lakh investment.
- Panna: land acquired, resort planned - the company has purchased land near Panna Tiger Reserve for a future wildlife resort, and separately acquired a 5-hectare parcel at Village Shivrajpur for resort development, though that second parcel became entangled in a title dispute; the company has recovered Rs. 1.34 crore through legal action and continues to pursue the balance of the total consideration and stamp duty.
- One lease surrendered, one lesson learned - a 90-year lease for 5.95 hectares at Parsili was surrendered in June 2026 after the Forest Department declined clearance because the land fell within the National Chambal Gharial Sanctuary; the Madhya Pradesh Tourism Board is refunding the Rs. 1.22 crore upfront premium and returning the Rs. 50 lakh performance guarantee, with the company also claiming a further Rs. 28.6 lakh in GST and lease rentals.
4. Standalone restaurant: a highway stop under a different brand
One restaurant in Jaipur, run through a subsidiary, sits outside the wildlife ecosystem - a small, leased experiment in roadside hospitality.
- Leased from the state tourism corporation - Peepal Restaurant operates at Gandhi Vatika, Central Park, Jaipur, on a lease from Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation, and was launched through the wholly owned subsidiary Divine Enterprises Private Limited in October 2025.
- Not a lodge, not a driver - the restaurant is a standalone food-and-beverage operation with no connection to the wildlife properties, representing a distinct, early-stage line of business.
Group structure and partners
A holding company with four subsidiaries, each built for a specific property or project - the structure keeps every lodge and development legally ring-fenced while the parent brand ties them together.
- The holding company, Jungle Camps India Ltd. (listed on the BSE SME Platform in December 2024), directly owns and operates the original Pench Jungle Camp.
- Divine Enterprises Private Limited (100% subsidiary) owns Tadoba Jungle Camp and launched Peepal Restaurant in Jaipur.
- Versa Industries Private Limited (51% subsidiary) owns Kanha Jungle Camp.
- Madhuvan Hospitality Private Limited (100% subsidiary) is the development vehicle for the Mathura hotel project, with paid-up capital increased to 38.6 lakh equity shares after the June 2025 rights issue.