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| Tourism road shows act as goldmine for many associations that exist on paper only | | Single headed associations with no official address make most out of it | | Jehangir Rashid
Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Jan 14: Road shows being carried out by the Department of Tourism in different parts of the country as well as abroad are acting as no less than windfall for some of the associations that are existent only on papers.
Sources told Early Times that some of the associations are almost non-existent, but still then they receive huge funds for participation in the road shows both in India and abroad. They said the issue is no less than a scam with lakhs of rupees being received by the associations.
"The tourism sector is a goldmine for many of the people who claim to be working for the promotion of the same. The conduct of road shows is a part of the same process with people receiving huge amount in lieu of the same. This has been going on for the past so many years now and one fears it would continue in future as well," said sources.
Sources said that most of the tourism associations comprise of a single person and as a result of the money received on account of road shows goes in the kitty of this person. They said that tourism promotion takes a hit in this whole scenario with the people being deceived in the name of tourism promotion.
"Over the years the tourism department higher ups despite knowing the wrong have not bothered to look into the matter so that the truth comes out. The inaction is sufficient enough to suggest that the officers of the department are in league with the people who are making huge profits in so called process of tourism promotion," said sources.
Sources said that there is no accountability whatsoever with regards to holding of tourism promotion events like the holding of road shows. They said that in most of the cases the practice is futile as the inflow of tourists is very low as compared to the amount spent on the tourism promotion activities.
"It is an irony that the department of tourism has never bothered to carry out follow up action after the conduct of road shows both in India and abroad. The same was important since it would have given an insight to the department vis-à-vis success of its attempts to lure tourists both domestic as well as foreign," said sources.
Sources said that this would have cleared the doubts that have come up after claims from the people at helm that more than two million tourists visited Kashmir during 2017 and 2018. They said that most of the tourism players have accused the government of exaggerating figures with regards to tourist inflow so that a rosy picture is presented.
Sources said that many of the tourism associations don't have any official address with the functioning being carried out from the house of the person heading the association. They said that 'loot' in the name of tourism promotion has been going on for many years now. |
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