CM Himachal Pradesh in India launches Home Stay Scheme
Reporting By M.M.Khanna, Travel Journalist C/O indianewscalling.com
Shimla,August 05, 2008,Prof. Prem Kumar Dhumal, Chief Minister, today launched the ‘Home Stay Scheme – 2008′ by releasing the poster and provide incentives to the rural households having a
maximum of three roomed accommodation, exemption in fee for change in land use, luxury and sales/VAT, domestic rates for water and electricity.
The Tourism Department will assist in promotion of such units through its publicity campaign and on-line reservation facilities starting the registration process with the local competent registration authorities.
Chief Minister congratulated the Tourism Department for launching
the new scheme, which would benefit the rural people by associating
them with the tourism promotion activities. He said that the
tourism happened to be one of the major sectors in the state
generating direct employment to over 36,000 people and indirect
employment to lakhs of others. He said that there were about 2,000
hotels of different categories all over the state having bed
capacity of over 45,000. He said that Himachal Pradesh had been
blessed with immense natural beauty and grandeur, which needed to
be exploited for the benefit of the people. He said that the home
stay tourism would not only give boost to the tourism promotion
activities in the interiors but also acquaint them to the local
cuisines and life in the villages. He said that the state was rich
in culture, customs and traditions, which was yet to be exploited
for the promotion of tourism related activities. He appealed to the
people to come fo rward to draw benefit of the scheme and
supplement their income.
Prof. Dhumal said that the state had registered a high number of
8.8 million tourists registering a growth of 10 to 15 percent over
the past years in the arrival of tourists in the state during the
preceding year 2007-08 and the figure had touched 57.48 lakhs in
the last six months of the current calendar year. He said that the
contribution of the tourism sector to the Gross Domestic Product
had been 8.5 percent and the same was likely to go up with the
increase in the number of tourists. He emphasized the need to
create quality wayside infrastructure to cater to the requirements
of the travelers to make their journey more comfortable.
Chief Minister said that heli-taxi, ropeways and upgradation of
existing airport infrastructure had to be given top priority
besides making the local cuisines available to them, which varied
from district to district. He said that the department needed to
explore the possibilities of linking the development of Pong Dam
Golf course with the Buddhist Circuit plan and add facilities to
attract devotees on pilgrimage to visit the shrine of His Holiness
the Dalai Lama at Dharamshala.
Prof. Dhumal said that work on the construction of identified
ropeways needed to be speeded up to shorten the distances and
priority given to construct the Anandpur Sahib Naina Devi rope way
to connect two prominent holy shrines. The Bijli Mahadev, Shah
Talai and Palchan-Rohtang ropeways needed to be constructed on
completion of required modalities where the rush of the visitors
was much higher as compared to other places. He said that adventure
tourism was new passion with the young generation, which needed to
be promoted by creating necessary infrastructure. He said that
health tourism, religious tourism, sports tourism, para gliding,
mountain biking, raid de Himalaya etc.activities needed to be given
boost so that attention of the tourists from world over was drawn.
He directed the authorities to expedite the work on
Sundernagar airport.
Smt. Asha Swaroop, Chief Secretary, emphasized the need to conduct
crash courses for the hotel staff to carry the hospitality industry
in a professional manner. She said that the declaration of
Kalka-Shimla railway line as World Heritage also needed to be
\exploited for heritage tourism promotion.
Smt. Manisha Nanda, Secretary, Tourism welcomed the Chief Minister
and said that the ‘Home Stay Scheme-2008′ aimed at involving the
rural population with the tourism promotion of the state and the
same was likely to get popularity especially with the foreigners.
Shri Ram Subhag Singh, Commissioner Tourism, detailed the
initiatives of the department taken for tourism promotion.
Shri Bhim Sen, Principal Secretary to CM, Dr. Arvind Mehta,
\Principal Secretary Finance, Shri B.K. Aggarwal, Secretary to the
CM, Shri Manoj Sharma, Deputy Director of Tourism and other senior
officers attended the meeting.
August 5, 2008
Posted in: India