RURAL TOURISM TO GET FOCUS – AMBIKA SONI

The Union Government will unveil a comprehensive plan for promoting Rural Tourism, after the completion of the Pilot Project being implemented in 104 villages across the country. The focus of the program will be capacity building in tourism through an array of measures like creation of tourist conveniences like budget hotels, training of youth for manning hotels and to act as guides and to take up other related vocations.

Stating this at an Open House with Tourism Industry held under the auspices of PHD Chamber yesterday in Delhi, Union Minister for Tourism and Cultural Affairs Ms. Ambika Soni said that there is a convergence in views among the States and the Central Government for pushing forward the Rural Tourism in view of the potential for creating more gainful employment in areas, where manufacturing and Information Technology have not made any impact. These cultural hubs would focus on promoting and packaging folk dances, village crafts, paintings, artisanship etc. Efforts are also underway to connect these hubs to major tourist circuits, which would help the tourists to go from one center to the other and to imbibe the cultural diversity of India. “We are considering more allocation for tourism capacity building both at the village and District levels,” Ms Soni remarked.

To a question from the floor that the upkeep of the tourist centers were not up to the market despite charging very high fee from the visitors, Ms Soni said that the Government was seriously thinking about outsourcing cleaning, sanitation and other related works to private agencies. This, she hoped, would bring more accountability to the cleaning operations. In this regard, she invited the private industry to adopt tourist spots for their all-round development, upkeep and hygienic maintenance. “These spots are ideal for holding shopping festivals, cuisine displays etc, which can attract a large number of tourists, both from India and abroad,” she said, adding that “India still not has become a hot destination for tourists and a greater degree of private-public partnership is required for achieving the objective.” She also referred to the need for dovetailing tourism works with the activities of the Urban Renewal Mission for Sanitation and Hygiene since high standards of hygiene and cleanliness have to be maintained to package India as a credit worthy destination for tourism.

Disclosing that the Delhi Government (Lt Governor) has signed an Ordinance yesterday to exempt the “bed and breakfast” scheme launched by the Government to release more rooms for the forthcoming Commonwealth Games in the NCR region, from paying commercial rates for water, electricity etc, Ms Soni hoped that this would act as an incentive for more households to join the scheme. She also has mentioned that the suggestions made by the tourism industry for rationalization of taxes are on the desk of Finance Minister and also with Planning Commission. She also responded favorably to suggestion from the PHD Chamber that there should be a single point for collection of taxes incidental on the tourism segment to be appropriated amongst the States. “A body like NHAI should be the collecting agency and every State Government should open up a separate bank account for this purpose so that the apportioned proceeds can be transferred to this account,” she added.

Referring to the difficulties in getting adequate land for construction of hotels in the country to augment the supply of rooms to address to the growing mismatch between the supply and demand for rooms, Minister of Tourism said that she had written to the Prime Minister about trying innovative schemes like Land Banks, equity sharing and greater degree of private-public partnership. She informed that 30,000 additional rooms would be made available in Delhi alone by 2010. State of Haryana would release an additional 8000 rooms. Intense consultations are on with the Government of UP for building more hotel rooms and also for revising upwards the number of rooms that a guest house can have. The Government is also trying to mobilize land from individual sellers for building budget hotels and guest houses. She also referred to the need for fine-tuning some of the restrictions imposed by the Environment Ministry to overcome the hurdles faced in identifying the land.

Ms Soni disclosed that the Government has already set up 21 Institutes so far for training personnel required for hotel industry. There are a number of initiatives from the private sector. In addition to these, 16 food craft institutes are coming up both in the public and private sector. These efforts, she hoped would help in tying down the manpower requirements of the hotel industry, which is estimated upwards of 2 lakhs by 2010.