Give it any name- potential, promise, future, capacity or prospects, Jammu tourism cannot be found wanting in the prerequisites for consideration of its development. Let our vision be not limited up to Patnitop or a few places nearby only in that context but look at it from a holistic view, segregating and compartmentalising it into conventional scenic tourism, religious tourism, historic and cultural tourism, adventurist tourism and the like and in each case, it would be found out that we had not touched even a small part of it towards its potentiality and utility. That was revealing more things than could be conveniently swept under the rug. Is it that enough has not been done by hitherto Kashmir centric leadership that was calling the shots of all hues of critical decisions making mechanism in all the regions of the erstwhile state, all these years?
At the same time, without mincing any words, question arises as to what was Jammu leadership doing as they either did not give vent to their feelings deliberately or Jammu tourism appeared to them of little import, significance and purport.
We need not reiterate and draw and redraw on the canvas of tourism map of Jammu region the individual importance from the point of tourism about places specific which were equally enchanting and bewildering in natural beauty and grandeur as that of the Valley but would like to have an exhaustive and all encompassing tourism policy for promotion of Jammu tourism. We may stress upon the point that tourism is not only a budding and promising industry but an important contributor to the building up of the country’s GDP as it has collateral offshoots of economic prosperity in the shape of developing specific areas and generating local economies, providing growth stimulus to transport and hotel industry, exposure of and trade in areas specific arts, crafts, agricultural produce and exchanging cultural traditions and ways. We see how thousands of foreigners in annual Pushkar Mela in Rajasthan get all immersed in local cultural traditions in respect of attires, headgears, cuisines, music and folk dances. We, in Jammu region are richest in our cultural treasures which need to be exploited and developed with intent to have their exposure to the benefit of the areas specific.
Our lakes, and their adjoining places, monuments and ancient spiritual symbols even in peripheral areas, continue to remain unexplored and undeveloped . Aggressive marketing from tourism angle about such places remains an area in utter deficit in whatever tourism policy for Jammu is devised. That could partly be due to such places having poor connectivity and absence of basics like lodging facilities, sight seeing facilities, provisions of toilets and washrooms en-route, elementary medical facilities, entertainment and folk music like evening programmes etc being all just on paper and not otherwise. We have forts, monuments, palaces in ruins self speaking about their majesties and elegance even in ruins but they continue to be unexplored. Once slightly developed for tourism, they could generate revenue sufficient enough for their upkeep and sustenance.
We have ancient Krimchi temples known as Pandva temples in nearby Udhampur district in picturesque surroundings, initially said to have been built during Mahabharta time and later developed by kings and ruling dynasties but continue to be unexplored and undeveloped due to poor connectivity and abject condition of necessary infrastructure . So, what is needed is having a professional, expert and dedicated policy framework with a clear cut vision to develop Jammu tourism progressively and involve in that exercise, all stake holders so that this constituent of the country, now under changed political and constitutional framework being the other part of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, comes up prominently on the canvas of tourism. No empty rhetoric or flowery and well decorated paper work but concrete action alone would solve the tourism puzzle of Jammu region.
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