Photo: Malay KumarGovt ropes in locals to conserve tourist spots
Shishir Kumar
The Jharkhand tourism department seems to be working on libertarian philosophy of civil society these days. The department has decided to give the responsibility of maintaining the tourist spots in the State to local people of the concerned district.
"We have decided to renovate and develop tourist spots and then we shall be handing over the spots to some local non-profit organisation," said Alok Shrivastava, OSD, Dept of Tourism.
He said the purpose behind handing over the tourist spots to such organisations is to engage the local population in the conservation of the tourist spots, besides it would also give job opportunity to them and ultimately raise the socio-economic condition of the locals.
Jharkhand that has large scope of archaeological tourism, herbal and medical tourism, and religious tourism would include common masses in the promotion and conservation of tourism industry in the State for the first time.
"The primary purpose of this step is to make the localities feel that they are involved with the conservation work of these spots and it is their responsibility to keep the tourist spots in shape," Shrivastava added.
The organisations that would take up the job of maintaining the tourist spots would have to hire people from the local population for the purpose. "We felt that rather than moving our people to every spot and hiring more people engaging the local people of the concerned spot would be a better idea," he claimed.
The OSD said that the department would give advertisements and other monetary helps to the organisation that would take up the job of maintaining these tourist spots. "The local district administration of the concerned areas would give a report on the performance of the organisations and how they are maintaining the tourists spot the fund would be allotted on the same basis.
Besides, the involvement of the local population this step would reduce the Government expenses as the work of maintenance would be given on lease basis.
Tourism for the first time got the status of industry in the five years plan in June 1982, however, Jharkhand that has immense potentialities in this industry
has now started exploring the possible market of the tourism industry.
In another step towards the development, the tourism department has planned to raise a tourist police force in the line of that of Maharastra. "We would raise the tourist police for security of the spots soon. For this we would send requisition to the home department to give us the required force. The expenses of force will be born by the tourism department," Shrivastava added.
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