By: Nitin Kumar Sharma
I am a frequent traveller and have covered almost the whole of North India including Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, UP, Sikkim, Meghalya and of course our Himachal Pradesh, the land of Gods. Not only Uttarakhand, but other places like Sikkim and J&K too are positioning themselves as Dev Bhoomi.
Himachal government has utterly failed to promote tourism at the highest level. Its efforts are very local. It has failed to mobilise the local trades, culture and the community at large to become an attraction point for the tourists.
Right now it’s Madhya Pradesh that is at the top on the tourist’s map and is being marketed by the state government aggressively on television and other forms of media. It’s in fact positioning itself as the “place of all seasons, weathers and all terrains”.
Himachal is mostly known for Shimla and at the most Kullu-Manali. How about the other places and how about the innumerous places related to the Gods that find mention in our holy books and scriptures including the Shiv Mahapuran.
The government should seriously and aggressively revitalise the Dev Bhoomi positioning platform and take ownership it and let not other states hijack it. And obviously should:
Publish articles on some of the religious places in national newspapers.
Sponsor major travel programmes on major general entertainment and news channels
Promote local languages. Uttarakhand has many Garhwali and Kumaoni films. Why doesn’t Himachal have?
Today there are many websites on Himachal like HimVani. They can certainly be the best platform to promote Himachal.
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how is himachal going to present itself if the funds being requested by Himchal Government from central Govt are rejected?
Himachal has to address this issue, they have ample funds. And the rejection of funds which has been mentioned has happened just now, what has been done in past years.
MP is certianly a hot cake in tourism market, not in summers though.
Although all the govt has failed to achive this, the current govt is spearheading the laziness and lack of apathy.
Leave apart betterment, they are not able to upkeep what was good. For example take shimla bypass. Just near Lalpani private/govt constructers have found a great dumping ground for what they call “malba”, there are no fines imposed on the lawbreakers. On top of that there comes a decision to route all the buses from Chandigarh- delhi through by pass. It has become a govt sponserd accident prone area.
The General trend is that in last year of tenure Govt.’s mop up and try to do something which has been ignored for past 4 years, they are not even doing that. Shame on MC and Govt.
Even after that if Ruling party in MC retains MC, it means the voters also do not want things to improve.
We need to be more involved in development …rather then depending on non-performing Govt.’s