Tourism Beyond the Roadmap

The Chief Secretary's review of the tourism roadmap for Jammu Division, with its emphasis on religious circuits, border tourism, adventure destinations and ecotourism, offers a welcome glimpse of what the coming years could hold. Presentations were made, projects were listed, figures were cited, and officers spoke with evident enthusiasm about Purmandal-Utterbehni, Shivkhori, Aithem, Suchetgarh, Baradari and Basohli-RanjitSagar Lake. On paper, it reads as an ambitious, well-rounded vision. The question that must now be asked, with the scepticism born of long experience, is: when will it be delivered? Tourism is never a patchwork of bits and pieces. A destination succeeds only when several elements come together at once: a genuine site capable of drawing visitors, a motorable approach road, basic amenities such as washrooms, eateries and lodging, and trained guides, hospitality staff and equipment - ropeways, ponies, mountain bikes - wherever the terrain demands them. Kashmir Division has repeatedly demonstrated that this model works. Jammu has yet to replicate it in any sustained way.

Consider the numbers. More than a crore pilgrim tourists visit Jammu Division every year, overwhelmingly drawn by Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine. Yet the administration has struggled to divert any meaningful share of this footfall towards the region's other attractions. The reasons are not mysterious. They come down to a plain lack of facilities and infrastructure. Most of this footfall arrives during the summer holidays, monsoon months included, when families are travelling with children and want convenience above all else. The first question any visitor asks is simple: is the road any good? For too many of Jammu's destinations, the answer remains no. Sanasar's road has for years been a textbook case of an approach stretched between defence and civil authorities, with neither side quite taking ownership. Patnitop's inner circle roads tell a similar story of neglect. The Samba-Mansar-Sukrala Mata road is worse still, bad enough that residents have taken to the streets in protest, and the Jammu-Surinsar -Mansar stretch fares no better. Every one of these destinations has what nature can provide in abundance; what they lack, decade after decade, is the basic infrastructure that turns natural beauty into a viable tourist circuit.

The religious circuit story is equally familiar. Proposals under the PRASHAD scheme have been submitted before, headlines have been generated before, and yet very little has changed on the ground. The Basohli water sports hub has been "in circulation" for a long time without visible progress. Presentations, however polished, do not build a single ghat, shelter or cafeteria. Only a dedicated team of officers, working with real mission zeal and accountability, can convert plans into tangible results.

What makes this more frustrating is that some infrastructure already exists, but unutilised. The Mantalai Ashram, the Bani tourist centre, the huts at JhajjarKotli and the Tawi Golf Club have all been developed at public expense, yet remain underutilised for years. Aithem's paragliding facility has made headlines repeatedly but is still awaiting commercial launch. Unless such assets are activated and new ones are delivered in, Jammu's tourism potential will remain, as it has for years, a mirage.

One glaring gap in the current proposals is the near-total absence of homestays across the sites under consideration. Building footfall takes time, and homestays are precisely the kind of ground-level, community-linked intervention that should begin well before the bigger infrastructure projects are complete. Genuinely well-conceived projects generate momentum early - the Jammu Waste to Wonder Park is proof of that. The division needs more such imaginative, out-of-the-box thinking, not merely bigger versions of the same stalled ideas.

It is encouraging that the administration is once again reviving old proposals for these sites. But reviving a proposal is not the same as executing it, and the gap between the two has defined Jammu's tourism story for far too long. The coming months will be crucial in determining whether the projected plans finally take shape. The sites exist, the intent has been shown, and the plans are on the table. What is missing has been implementation. Only sincere, sustained effort - not another round of presentations - can finally free Jammu from its image as a mere transit point and establish it as a genuine, all-season tourism destination in its own right.