Even 3 months after LG’s direction, exercise yet to begin

Restructuring of Tourism Development Authorities

Govt wants to rectify mistakes committed by politicians

Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Mar 10: Adopting slack approach towards the vital decision taken by the Lieutenant Governor Girish Chandra Murmu, the Tourism Department has failed to initiate steps for restructuring of the Tourism Development Authorities during the past three months despite being aware of the fact that such a step is imperative to ensure their smooth functioning.
The directions for restructuring of the Tourism Development Authorities across the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir were issued by the Lieutenant Governor on December 10, 2019 while chairing a meeting to review the functioning of the Planning, Development and Monitoring Department at Civil Secretariat here.
“There is a pressing need to revamp the tourism sector,” Lt Governor had stated while directing the officers to assess the functioning of the Tourism Development Authorities and take necessary measures for their restructuring in a time bound manner.
Thereafter, the issue was debated in numerous meetings of the Committee of Secretaries chaired by the Chief Secretary BVR Subrahmanym and accordingly directions were issued to the Administrative Secretary of the Tourism Department to immediately initiate an exercise in this regard so that restructuring of Tourism Development Authorities is completed in the shortest possible time.
“However, despite lapse of three months exercise has yet not been started by the Tourism Department, which is the testimony of dilly-dallying approach towards the directives of none else than Lieutenant Governor”, official sources told EXCELSIOR.
It is pertinent to mention here that there were 24 Tourism Development Authorities in the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir but following bifurcation of State into two Union Territories there are 21 Tourism Development Authorities in Jammu and Kashmir at present.
“Most of the Tourism Development Authorities which were created during the past some years are lacking adequate manpower for achieving the objectives behind their creation”, sources said, adding “it is because of this reason that most of them have not become fully functional till date and are merely existing on the papers only”.
They further said, “the Government is also facing problems while posting Chief Executive Officers of these Tourism Development Department and that is why the charge of the post of Chief Executive Officers has been given to other officers in respect of some of the Tourism Development Authorities”.
“Actually, during the past some years the Tourism Development Authorities were created merely on political considerations and without analyzing the ground situation. Though at the time of sanctioning of more Tourism Development Authorities the posts of different categories were created but serious steps were never taken to fill up the same in a time bound manner”, sources said.
It may be recalled that in the month of February 2017, the then PDP-BJP Coalition Government had created several Tourism Development Authorities without looking into other aspects. These Tourism Development Authorities were created for Tosa Maidan, Shopian-Dubjan-Peer-Ki-Gali and Bani-Basohli.
While creating Bani-Basohli Tourism Development Authority, the name of Lakhanpur-Sarthal Tourism Development Authority was named as Billawar-Duggan Development Authority. However, neither Bani-Basohli Tourism Development Authority nor Billawar-Duggan has become fully functional till date.
Some of the Tourism Development Authorities have even failed to create necessary infrastructure for the convenience of the tourists as such there is big question mark on their existence, sources said while disclosing that majority of the Tourism Development Authorities have even not come up with the Master Plan for their respective areas despite being aware of the fact that without this vital step holistic and planned development in the areas under their respective jurisdiction cannot be ensured.
Moreover, majority of the Tourism Development Authorities in Jammu and Kashmir don’t have facility for scientific disposal of solid waste being generated in their areas of responsibility thereby posing grave threat to the environment of the tourist destinations.
“Now, the Government is planning to combine some of the Tourism Development Authorities so as to undo the wrong committed at the behest of the politicians as such restructuring exercise is imperative”, sources said.

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