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| TD's lethargy puts rural tourism into jeopardy | | No monitoring of beneficiary NGOs | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Mar 21: The lethargy on the part of State Tourism Department can be gauged from the fact that it did not obtain detailed accounts of Rs 1.09 crore spent by four NGOs, which were engaged to promote Rural Tourism, during 2006-07 to 2012-13. Moreover Department did not monitor the position of expenditure incurred and beneficiaries trained by the NGOs in the state.
T he Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India in its report said that in order to promote village tourism, Government of India (Gol) had launched 'Rural Tourism scheme' during 10th Five Year Plan and in one of its component Rs 1.09 crore were advanced during 2006-07 to 2012-13 to four NGOs under software component for training of local people in computer, photography, cutting and tailoring, embroidery, toy-making, weaving, tourist guides, local folk and dances, local cuisine etc.
CAG during its scrutiny noticed that the detailed accounts of the amount spent by these 4 NGOs and the details of local population trained by them had not been obtained indicating lack of monitoring by the Tourism Department.
The CAG further informed that the as per scheme it was emphasized that after the completion of the projects the Department should conduct survey of size and impact of tourism in the proposed location, monitor participatory output vis-a-vis targets and ensure long term adherence to core objectives but it was noticed that no such exercise was carried out by the Department to study the impact of the scheme and had not maintained any data regarding tourist inflow and employment generation in the villages under the scheme. "
CAG noticed that proper maintenance and inventorisation of the assets created had been envisaged in the scheme. The Department had not, however, made any provision for maintenance and inventorisation of tourist assets so created
Pertinently in order to promote rural tourism the Gol had sanctioned the scheme in 29 villages of the State under Prime Minister Reconstruction Plan (PMRP) during the period from 2005-13 at a cost of Rs 18.98 crore for both hardware (development of tourist infrastructure) and software (baseline surveys, workshops, training programmes/ skill development etc.) components. Against an allotment of Rs 15.62 crore for these 29 villages, Rs 15.56 crore was incurred as of March 2013 and the works in 23 villages stood completed and six villages were under execution (March 2013).
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