Madhya Pradesh Tourism department has come out with an innovative idea of employment generation and tourism promotion in the State by introducing city walks.
Principal Secretary of MP Tourism department and Managing Director of the State Tourism Board Hari Ranjan Rao, better known for his innovations talked to The Pioneer at length about his new initiative that is generating employment for the young generation by keeping alive with their passion and love about their different cities.
Under this, the unemployed youth or students in different cities of Madhya Pradesh who have passion about their cities and can spare around one hour in a day may earn Rs 1,000 for one walk.
Rao stated that for the purpose, we have tied up with a Delhi-based company indiacitywalks.
This is special agreement with the company and thus on visiting its website indiacitywalks.com, people can find only destinations of Madhya Pradesh, besides Delhi. On clicking any destination, people are available for providing different walks. If the tourist is interested in food, heritage site or any other places in the city, may opt for and a number of walker are available for selection.
Rao further said that this is the beginning and the Tourism department is paying the city walkers and afterwards they may quote their prices on the website and they would continue earning.
Talking about the concept, Rao informed that on similar concept a European website viator.com is already functioning and the walkers have quoted their rates with their specialities in different cities.
“We recently concluded a month-long walk on similar lines in major cities of Madhya Pradesh, particularly on weekends. It evoked a good response and a number of youths have got associated with this,” he added.
In the beginning, the department had to work hard in order to get the youths. “We contacted universities and colleges and there was a long queue of youngsters. In Bhopal, we found youths who were interested in food walks of the city, photo walk and heritage walk. We have enlisted them with us,” Rao informed.
It was only on the initiative of Rao that State Tourism Board was carved, with an objective of State tourism’s branding, publicity, investment promotion and promotion of adventure tourism. After the formation of the Board, the Tourism Development Corporation has been limited to focus on business only.