Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Aug 28: National Conference president and Member of Parliament from Srinagar Dr Farooq Abdullah on Saturday stated that sustainable tourism can be a driving force of job creation, economic growth and development in Jammu and Kashmir as well as Ladakh.
Dr Farooq said this in his presidential address at the National Meet on Safety Culture and Energy conservation at Sonamarg, last evening. Addressing the meet, Dr Farooq dispelled the myths about Kashmir and said that the region is entirely safe for tourists. The to-do list for visitors in Kashmir, Dr Farooq said, espouses camping, trekking, motor biking, Gondola, skiing, White river rafting on one hand and cultural tourism on the other hand. He said the region has to offer a lot to meet the expectations of the visitors.
He also underscored the need of harvesting renewable resources of energy to meet the ever growing demands of the nation. “Nature has a limit; we cannot go on robbing it of its forests and other fossil fuels. A time will reach when most of our fossil fuels will get depleted. The future belongs to renewable energy and J&K has a lot to offer on that front. We have the sun shine, the wind, biomass and the gushing rivulets that offer an immense potential to cater to the future demands of the energy sector,” he said and also urged the tourism players to shift towards green tourism by decreasing their dependency on non-renewable sources of energy.
Stressing on the safety stands of the working force mainly the manual labourers working in mega mining, rail road and tunnel projects, he said the Government is duty bound to ensure the safety and security of workers. There ought to be multipronged strategy and policy frame work to address the safety concern of manual laborers, which he said, are the hands of nation.
Besides senior leader of the Party and former legislature Mian Altaf Ahmed, nearly 150 delegates from across India and cross section of industries participated in the meet.
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