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Kanti Singh to monitor state progress

Jyoti Koul - New Delhi

The newly-appointed additional minister for state for tourism and culture, Kanti Singh, has been assigned to monitor development of state tourism. She will be responsible for tracking the progress of projects across the country and discuss projects and other development details with state tourism ministers. She has already visited Maharashtra and Bihar.

Singh says, "Ambika Soni, who has been a great support to me ever since I joined the ministry, has herself assigned me this role. I will be charting out project aspects like fund allocation, time frame for development, quality of work, etc, with tourism ministers of various states as well as monitor the progress of on-going projects. I will also be focusing on both development of culture and tourism. We want to identify new areas of tourism that may require infrastructure development or marketing, besides listing new possibilities." Also on her agenda is the development of rural tourism and taking forward the railway minister's initiative of decorating the bogies of Indian railways with Madhubani paintings. "This will give a lot of impetus to the village in Bihar that produces this art form," she informed.