RDMC report reveals absence of policy, outdated & incomplete data

| | Dehradun
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RDMC report reveals absence of policy, outdated & incomplete data

Wednesday, 26 September 2018 | PNS | Dehradun

Though the State has been officially focusing on various aspects of tourism, it still lacks a notified policy on tourism and eco-tourism. Even States like neighbouring Uttar Pradesh and Punjab that have considerably less natural assets compared to Uttarakhand are working on specific eco-tourism policies but Uttarakhand doesn’t even have a policy for this sector yet. Further, information about activities in this sector displayed on official websites is outdated and incomplete. These and other anomalies in the sector were revealed in the RDMC report on eco-tourism released by CM Trivendra Singh Rawat in Dehradun on Tuesday.

The RDMC vice chairman Sharad Singh Negi said that while States like neighbouring Uttar Pradesh are working as per an eco-tourism policy, Uttarakhand, with considerably much more environmental wealth does not even have an eco-tourism policy in place. Even in case of the facilities available in the State, the Government bodies concerned are not providing updated and proper information.

In the case of home-stays, the website of the Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board lists a total of 335 home-stays whereas this is about half the number of home-stays presently available in the State.

Further, the RDMC report states that the current registered home-stays show a skewed distribution among different districts with as high as 79 and 69 in Tehri and Almora districts respectively and as low as one and two in Rudraprayag and Chamoli districts respectively.

Apart from the distribution of such registered home-stays being highly uneven according to departmental data, the details of the home-stays available on the website are not even complete.

In this age of online inquiries and booking, the email address is missing for most of the home-stays and in some cases even the contact numbers are not available. Since home-stays are only a part of the tourism experience, there is also need for providing information to potential tourists on nearby treks, temples and other tourist spots which is presently not being provided.

When it comes to the wildlife attractions in the State, the report points out that though there are six national parks, seven wildlife sanctuaries and four wildlife conservation reserves, the bulk of tourists visit Corbett national park.

When it comes to river rafting, there are nine stretches on various rivers identified for this activity but it is concentrated mainly on the 36 kilometre stretch of the Ganga from Kaudiyala to Rishikesh with the other sites being ignored.

In addition to this, there are multiple agencies working in the sphere of eco-tourism whereas the commission has recommended that there should be a single nodal agency for the eco-tourism sphere. Considering these aspects revealed in the RDMC report, the CM directed the tourism secretary to make necessary changes and improvements.

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