Safety Procedures For Adventure TOs Under Scanner

In order to ensure high safety standards in adventure tourism activities, the government has proposed accreditation of adventure tour operators in various categories. The accreditation committee constitutes members from different adventure tourism bodies including National Institute of Water Sports, Indian Mountaineering Federation and Armed Forces Headquarters. This committee would screen the present infrastructure and carry out inspection of the facilities available with the tour operators to award various categories of accreditation.

The Ministry of Tourism has also circulated draft guidelines on adventure tourism related activities among state governments and the travel and tourism industry for suggestions. The guidelines will be finalised by the end of the year 2005. Initially, guidelines are being suggested for mountaineering, rock climbing, trekking, mountain biking, river running, scuba diving, parasailing, paragliding and bungee jumping. According to these guidelines, the chief guide of the mountaineering expeditions should have 'A' grade advance mountaineering course certificate and experience of five climbing expeditions above 6,000 mts. Advance arrangements must be made by the operator for evacuation and assistance while planning the expedition.

Regarding river rafting, the guidelines suggest that operators should arrange at least two additional crafts on the water and have familiarisation runs in advance to know the evacuation routes in case of emergency. Similarly, in case of bungee jumping, all parts of the jump line must be duplicated. Each rope should have an examiner's certificate from an independent source and be selected according to the weight of the jumper.