By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 25 Jan: The Uttarakhand Government has taken an important step towards rehabilitation of Border Villages under the Vibrant Village Programme and chosen Jadung in Uttarkashi district for this first of its kind initiative. This proposal was approved by the state cabinet at yesterday’s meeting. It may be recalled that the village of Jadung has not been inhabited since 1962, when the villagers were moved out during the Indo-China war.
In the first phase, the Tourism Department is planning to renovate and refurbish 6 homes which are currently in a dilapidated state and promote them as Homestays. The unique feature of this project is that, while the Department of Tourism shall be redeveloping the houses as homestays, these shall be operated/run by the villagers. The houses shall be refurbished in vernacular architecture using locally available material.
Sachin Kurve, Secretary, Tourism has claimed that this will enable generation of self-employment opportunities for the villagers of Jadung and provide a unique tourism destination. He also stated that the villagers will have to operate the homestays at least for a period of 10 years. The homestay operators will be chosen by the District Administration of Uttarkashi by seeking applications from the original inhabitants of the village. The operational guidelines for the homestays have also been finalised.
The tourism department is also planning to provide adequate skill and soft skills training to the homestay operators, which would be organised from time to time by the department. The department will provide necessary support for marketing and promotion of these homestays.
After the approval by the state cabinet, the project is set to be rolled out soon by the State Tourism Department. The government expects that the scheme shall become a milestone towards reverse migration through government intervention and create new opportunities for tourism.
