By OUR STAFF REPORTER
DEHRADUN, 20 Sept: Officials of the Uttarakhand Tourism and Civil Aviation Departments presented the work being done on tourism development before Governor Lt General Gurmit Singh (Retd) at the Raj Bhavan, here, on Wednesday. Tourism Minister Satpal Maharaj was also present at the meeting.
On this occasion, the Governor said that tourism in Uttarakhand is a boon. “We will have to develop infrastructure facilities and tourist places here according to the present needs,” he emphasised. “Along with developing untouched tourist sites, the tourist destinations should be widely publicized. We need to make special efforts to attract tourists.”
Governor Singh said that Uttarakhand has unlimited possibilities in the fields of tourism, wellness and organic agriculture. People from all over the country and the world are coming here for yoga and Ayurveda. There is a need to connect all these with tourism. With spiritual pilgrimage sites like Char Dham, Haridwar and Rishikesh along with better opportunities for adventure tourism, everyone is eager to visit here. Special efforts are needed to encourage skiing in the world-famous Auli.
Additional Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Development Council, Yugal Kishore Pant gave a presentation related to tourism development. He said that work is proposed to be done in a total of 48 temples under the Manaskhand Temple Mala Mission in Kumaon. Under this, 16 temples have been taken up in the first phase.
He said that this year a token system has been started for the convenience of the devotees on the Char Dham Yatra. So far, this year, 41,23,377 devotees have come for the Char Dham Yatra. He said that facilities are being provided to tourists at many places through ropeways and some other ropeways are also proposed. The process of developing George Everest Park in Mussoorie is also in progress.
Pant added that the Tourism Development Council is benefiting people through self-employment-related schemes. Employment has been provided to many people under Veer Chandra Singh Garhwali Yojana and Deen Dayal HomeStay Schemes.
On this occasion, Tourism Minister Satpal Maharaj said that other developmental works including facilities for the devotees are being done during the Char Dham Yatra. He said that under religious and spiritual circuits, work is being done to develop the Shakti Circuit, Navratri Circuit, Shaiva Circuit, Vaishnav Circuit, Vivekananda Circuit, etc., in Uttarakhand.
Secretary to the Governor, Ravinath Raman, Chief Executive Officer Ravi Shankar, Colonel Sameer and other officers were present at the meeting.
