North-East Council Summit Begins In Gangtok

GANGTOK, April 27: Union tourism minister Mrs Ambika Soni today announced that separate hotel management institutes would be established in all the North-eastern states if these states agree to contribute five acres of land to boost tourism.Addressing the inaugural session of the two-day North-East Council (NEC) summit on tourism and hospitality here today, Mrs Soni, said: "We have the permission from the Centre to allot Rs 25 crores for destination development and Rs 50 crores for circuit development to the N-E states." She urged the N-E states to get in touch with the World Heritage Society for listing their historical sites in the world heritage list. Deferring from the earlier thrust on mass tourism, Mrs Soni called for development of sustainable and eco-friendly tourism on the lines of Bhutan tourism. "We have to develop new products and cultural tourism would be a step in the right direction," she said. Mrs Soni added that tourism was put in the backburner in the country in the past. However, the mindsets have changed as tourism is now the largest employment generating industry in the country, she said. According to her, IT sector caters only to the educated and computer savvy people while tourism embraces the rural masses too. Union Minister for NEC, Mr Mani Shankar Aiyer, Governors of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and chief ministers of Nagaland, Mizoram and Sikkim attended the inaugural day of the summit today. Speaking on the occasion, Mr Aiyer outlined four plans to boost tourism in the N-E states. Firstly, the states should plan tourism for themselves as problems vary from one state to another, he said. Promotion of multi tourism encounter between N-E states and eastern India was the second concentric centre of the Union minister. The third step to boost tourism is to have three or four packages where the tourists visit all the eight N-E states, he added. The fourth measure is linking tourism with the neigbhouring countries, such as Bhutan and Nepal, he said. "One day, Sikkim would link tourism with Tibet and if that were to happen, it would be a gateway to Shangri-la," the minister, added. "We need to focus on domestic markets to boost tourism," Mr Aiyer, said. He informed that the connectivity issues of N-E states are being addressed as over Rs 50,000 crore is likely to be invested for this purpose.
(Statesman News Service)