CII Suggests A Cohesive Tourism Policy For North-East

Jyoti Koul - New Delhi

Realising the lack of a unified policy framework for tourism, CII has suggested a cohesive tourism policy for the eight states of North-East at a recently organised national conference on tourism. Aptly titled 'India's North-East- Paradise Unexplored', the day-long conference deliberated on various issues and opportunities in the region with respect to tourism development.

A stand was taken wherein all ministries and departments were required to allocate at least 10 per cent of their plan budget for schemes and programmes in the north-eastern region. This would amount to Rs 9308 crore for the year 2005-06 which, it was pointed out, is expected to offer a boost to the overall development of the region.

Habib Rehman, chairman, tourism committee, CII, who suggested that the region needs a cohesive tourism policy to advance its tourism, said, "The region needs an approach that can help yield faster results in more tangible manner. A five-year programme, that could be called the north-eastern infrastructure development initiative, should be put in place. The initiative should include infrastructure development, improved air and road connectivity, brand building and marketing, law and order and training and education etc. and in order to address these issues, a task force should be set up between CII, ministry of tourism and the north-eastern states." The conference also highlighted how the north-eastern states can be turned into tourist hubs by implementing corrective measures and investing in infrastructure development. According to Sudipto Mundle, Asian Development Bank, in sync with the ministries Look East policy; north-east could become a gateway to India for China, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Mynamar. He said that learning from Bhutan's policy of 'low volume- high value' tourism, India should adopt a similar strategy for the north-eastern region.

Further, at the conference, tourism minister for state, Renuka Chowdhury mentioned that she is pursuing the home ministry on the issue of relaxing restricted area permits in some parts of the region.