By Kavita Bajeli-Datt, IANS,
New Delhi : Municipality and village heads will soon have ample reason to keep tourist sites in their area spic and span. The government is planning to offer them incentives as it strives for “a culture of clean destinations”.
“We are planning to give incentives to municipal chairmen and sarpanchs on keeping tourist destinations in their area clean,” Tourism Minister Kumari Selja told IANS.
“We need to create the culture of clean destinations. We should take pride in our national heritage. Giving incentives would be one way of maintaining these monuments and destinations,” she added.
“We need to inculcate the habit of keeping sites clean. The habits are not there. If there is no pride, we will not be able to do it.”
The tourism minister said they would soon be launching a massive media campaign to highlight the initiative and increase awareness.
“Educating people and creating awareness among them is very important. We have to take pride in ourself and our heritage,” said the minister, who also holds the charge of housing and urban poverty alleviation.
“A traveller just wants a clean bed and toilet. Hygienic and cleaner facilities makes a lot of difference,” Selja told IANS.
There are more than 3,650 ancient monuments and archaeological sites and remains of national importance, which are preserved by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). There are also 30 World Heritage Sites, including the Taj Mahal and Fatehpuri Sikri (both in Agra in Uttar Pradesh), Humayun’s Tomb and Qutub Minar and its monuments in Delhi.
These monuments belong to different periods, ranging from the prehistoric period to the colonial period and are located in different geographical settings. They include temples, mosques, tombs, churches, cemeteries, forts, palaces, step-wells, rock-cut caves, and secular architecture as well as ancient mounds and sites which represent the remains of ancient habitation.
Although, majority are kept spruced up by the ASI and sometimes NGOs, encroachments and urban slums that come up around these sites are major problems.
The tourism ministry is also sprucing up infrastructure at 20 new destinations and circuits that can be covered by visitors within three to four days. Besides, 40-odd ghats on the banks of Ganga – from Varanasi to Kolkata – are being upgraded.
The major focus, Selja said, was on building infrastructure and keeping the sites clean to attract more tourists to India.
Till October this year, about 4.02 million foreign tourists visited India. The figure was seven percent lower compared to the corresponding period last year. In 2008, a total of 5.37 million tourists had visited India.
(Kavita Bajeli-Datt can be contacted at [email protected])