Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, May 12: Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh said here today that Northeast will soon be a favourite tourist destination for people from not only across the country, but all over the world.
Dr Jitendra Singh was speaking as chief guest at the “Annual Tourism Awards 2017” function of “Holiday IQ”, an organization promoting tourism in the country. Also present on the occasion was Hari Nair, the Founder- Head of Holiday IQ, while Arun Nanda , Founder Head of Mahindra Holidays & Resorts and Priyank M. Kharge, Tourism Minister of Karnataka were the Guests of Honour.
On the occasion, popular skiing destination Gulmarg was voted as the best adventure destination.
Director Tourism Kashmir, Mahmood A Shah, received the award from Dr Jitendra Singh.
Gulmarg has been rated as the best adventure destination owing to its unique and unmatched beauty particularly during winter months when it is carpeted with white snow. Adventure lovers from across the globe visit Gulmarg for skiing, snowboarding, ice-staking besides enjoying unparalleled beauty.
Owing to its numerous world class features, Holiday IQ voted Gulmarg as the best winter destination on the basis of ratings by over 12 million travelers who are logging in every month through the Holiday IQ site and the app.
The other destinations which were voted during the award ceremony are Amritsar as favorite pilgrim destination, Konark in Orissa as best Heritage destination, Kerala as Best Water Front Destination, Mahindra and Mahindra as Favorite Resort, Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh as Favorite City, Karnataka Beach as Favorite Beach Destination.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, Northeast is a natural destination for tourists but could not receive its due attention because of the logistic issues like constraints of connectivity and accessibility. Over the last three years, however, he said, while hitherto several States including Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh had never seen a train, today not only all these States are on the Rail map of India, but in the next two years, all the States barring perhaps Sikkim will have a broad gauge rail track.
In addition, he said, the first ever train to Bangladesh will also be flagged off from Tripura and the rail track from Agartala is already under construction with the Indian side of it being funded by the Ministry of DoNER.
In order to showcase all that the Northeast has to offer to the rest of the world, from natural scenery to food cuisine, the Ministry of DoNER has, in the last two years, started a process of holding Northeast Festivals across the country at different locations including Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Mumbai, etc. For the first time, last year, a permanent Northeast Stall “Purbashree” was set up at Dilli Haat, which has proved highly successful and is attracting people from all walks of life and from all parts of the country.
To promote religious tourism, Dr Jitendra Singh enumerated a number of steps undertaken in the last three years and made a special mention of the Kamakhya (Assam) to Katra (Jammu & Kashmir) train which was dedicated to public by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Northeast visit in May last year and which will connect the two destinations of pilgrimage.
Dr Jitendra Singh also referred to the initiative taken by him to promote “Home Tourism” in such parts of the region where the hotel facilities were either insufficient or exorbitantly costly. He said, this experiment has proved so successful that it can be emulated even in other parts of India which are frequently visited by tourists.
In the process of promoting tourism, Dr Jitendra Singh said, the benefits go beyond the realms of tourism. Elaborating further, he said, the frequent exchange of population and visits by different sections of society from across the country have enabled the rest of India to know Northeast better and has also helped in bridging the gap that hitherto existed between Northeast and the rest of the country.
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