Refusing to let the heat subside, Congress MlA Amrita Rawat remained aggressive against the State Government on the third consecutive day in the Assembly on Thursday. She, this time, targeted the State Tourism Minister Dinesh Dhanai during the Question Hour. With the Minister cowering before the plethora of questions thrown at him, the Chief Minister Harish Rawat pitched in. The Minister being from the Progressive Democratic Front (PDF), things took an interesting turn in the Assembly.
Replying to a question of BJP MlA Madan Kaushik, Dinesh Dhanai said that 2,94,85,504 tourists- 1,11,094 foreign and 2,93,74,410 domestic- had visited Uttarkahand between January 2015 and December 2015. As tourist census is being done for the calendar year they had not detailed information about the present time tourist figure, he said, adding that to raise the tourist footfalls, they had been creating new tourist destinations and circuits. “Besides, we have been promoting adventure sports and conducting winter char dham yatra. We have issued annual event calendar of tourism department as well. We have also organised Heeto Pahad, Dayara Track to help the State leave the memory of the disaster 2013 behind,” the minister claimed.
At this juncture, Amrita Rawat stood and asked him to spell out the number of the projects sanctioned by the Centre to the State so far. She also asked about the status of Seeta Ki Safari, initiated for Ramnagar Assembly constituency. She mentioned that the Centre had released `1.6 crore out of the sanctioned Rs eight crore so far. Dhanai said that as they had not received forest clearance for the project they had diverted the fund to develop Kausani-Someshwar tourist circuit.
Replying to another question asked by MlA Bishan Singh Chufal, Dhanai said that they had released the full budget for 19 out 31 projects while they had released the first installment for the remaining 12 projects so far. “However, we have not received fund from the Centre for 10 projects as we had failed to submit utilisation certificates (UC) of them,” he said.
Buoyed by this admission, as the Opposition bench tore into the Treasury bench, the parliamentary affairs minister Indira Hridayesh came to the faltering minister’s rescue.
The minister later said that the State Government has prepared a master plan to new-make tourism. The plan has been made on the basis of 14 points - strengthening of institutional arrangement; development of infrastructure facility; promotion of private partnership; capital investment for tourism promotion from all resources; development of human resource; publicity and tourism marketing; equal development of pilgrimage and religious; development of ecological tourism and natural tourism; development of entertainment tourism; development of tourist lounge; institutional tourism; review on development of adventure tourism and inner line and development of tourism based artisan industry.
Kunwar Pranav Singh Champion, a Congress MlA, asked the minister about whether the State government had envisaged any plan on heritage tourism development. Dhanai failed to answer satisfactorily. As the Opposition sprang up to use his discomfiture, CM Rawat intervened, affirming that the State government was serious to promote heritage tourism. “With this end in view, we have constituted eco- tourism corporation. We have some plans for future too,” he said.