International tourism mart at Tawang in October

The Centre has given Arunachal Pradesh the go-ahead to conduct a mega tourism event at Tawang, bordering China, in October. Union Tourism Ministry secretary Parvez Dewan informed this to state tourism minister Pema Khandu during a meeting at New Delhi yesterday, official sources said here today.

The meeting, which was attended by tourism secretary and director of all the north-eastern states besides West Bengal, decided that the Ministry would conduct the prestigious 'International Tourism Mart' at Tawang in October this year. Dewan assured to ensure release of the required fund for the event and requested all participating states to go ahead with its preparation, sources said.

"With the tourism industry likely to increase to USD 275.5 billion by 2018 at a 9.4 per cent annual growth rate in India, it is high time for the union tourism ministry to shift the focus to the North Eastern states, particularly Arunachal Pradesh, which is endowed with huge potential for all kinds of tourism including the popularly growing niche tourism," Khandu said.

Khandu expressed that conducting the mega event successfully would depend principally on resumption of helicopter service from Guwahati to Tawang and assured to take up the matter with the state government. While enlisting the initiatives of his department in augmenting tourism sector, Khandu appealed to the Centre for relaxing the provision of Protected Area Permit (PAP) and Restricted Area Permit (RAP), which were posing a major hurdle in foreign tourist flow to the state.

"Unlike other states, the working period in NE is very less as we have a long spell of rainy season starting from March to September which hampers work progress. We may, therefore, be granted a special dispensation so far as project completion period of two years is concerned," Khandu said. PTI UPL SB SAI