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Experts discuss Assam's strategies and initiatives for bringing tourists to the North East.

Experts discuss Assam’s strategies and initiatives for bringing tourists to the North East.

TGI: What’re Assam’s tourism plans?
Himanshu Shankar Das: We have a central government scheme for 30% subsidy for properties which are two-star and above. There’s also a scheme for reimbursement of VAT and of luxury tax. For other properties, such as small guest houses, we’ll give subsidy from the state government for the same percentage.

For those who want to set up hotels away from the mainland, it may get expensive to draw up a power line. So we subsidise that. If someone needs an access road from the main highway for a resort, we’ve a subsidy for its construction and improvement.

Apart from that, if an investor needs land, the government gives a lot of co-operation. We’ve started the Assam Tourism Council. It has been notified this year.

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In this council 50% members are private stakeholders – tour operators, travel agents, hoteliers. The remaining 50% are government functionaries from departments connected to tourism – the state electricity board, forest department and PWD etc.

Kaziranga National Park was running on 11kb power line until two years ago. Come evening and there were so many tourist lodges with very low voltage. We have converted that to 33kb line from the council. The tourism budget is 45crore supplemented by budgets for infrastructure development by other departments which have a bearing on tourism.

Prabhulal Joshi: Everyone cannot afford to fly. The train service to Assam is not very good – the trains are dirty, there is often no water and the not everyone prefers the. Why not run the train via Kolkata? And can we also have tourist police?

Das: Although a number of trains are there but the services are not good. Our CM has formally written to the railway ministry that we are not asking for more trains yet. But do improve the quality of services.

Last year we have introduced tourist police to Kaziranga and Manas. We’ve already started this in five places. All guesthouses in Kaziranga have a police tourist helpline. Any tourist can dial the number. Kaziranga has a tourist police outpost.

TGI: What about safety concerns?
Das: From tourist point of view the safety issue is not worth mentioning. Even though there have been political disturbances in Assam not a single tourist has ever been harmed. During the agitation a lot of harm was caused to the wildlife.

It was a poachers’ paradise. Now that the Bodo rebels have realised what they have done to the areas and they have come to the mainstream, many of them have, in fact, formed NGOs, some are tour operators. The government is helping them. Tridib Sharma: Assam has now changed – it is very peaceful. The signal from the government is absolutely clear.

We want Assam to be a tourist state. We want to create a tourist-friendly environment. If there is a problem, the solution is tourism. If we have to eradicate unemployment, there is tourism. If we have to have better understanding between the people of Assam and the rest of India, it’ll be through tourism.