Lack of coordination between deptts creating impediments
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, May 2: Though eco-tourism promotion has remained a catchphrase for the PDP-BJP Coalition Government ever since it took over the reins of the State yet on ground no step has been initiated to tap the immense potential. This can be gauged from the fact that despite lapse of three years even much-needed eco-tourism policy could not be finalized because of lack of coordination between the concerned departments.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that soon after the formulation of PDP-BJP Coalition Government the then Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed started laying stress on tapping of eco-tourism potential of the State and in this regard he suggested formulation of eco-tourism policy in a time bound manner.
Initially, the task of formulating the eco-tourism policy was assigned to the Tourism Department, which even prepared draft of the same, but thereafter it was felt that Forest Department should handle the task. Accordingly, while chairing a high-level meeting on September 17, 2015, the then Chief Minister put the onus of developing eco-tourist sites on the Forest Department and even suggested dovetailing the efforts with that of Tourism Department to obtain optimum results.
In the year 2016, Forest Department prepared the draft of the eco-tourism policy and started process of obtaining comments/suggestions from the stakeholders, Non-Governmental Organizations and concerned Government Departments. However, this process has not concluded till date, sources said, adding Tourism Department has yet not furnished its comments on the draft policy to the Forest Department as a result of which no further progress could be made.
Stating that lack of coordination between departments has created obstacles in tapping eco-tourism potential, sources said, “it seems that Government believes in promoting eco-tourism only by placing draft policy on the websites of different departments—General Administration, Forest and Tourism”, adding “there is also mismatch between the draft policy placed on the websites of these three departments”.
When contacted, a senior officer of the Forest Department confirmed that comments on draft eco-tourism policy were awaited from the Tourism Department. “Since Tourism Department is the main stakeholder we cannot go ahead without their cooperation”, he said while expressing inability to specify time-frame for completion of exercise which was started in 2015.
“Had there been proper and timely intervention from the Government to ensure proper coordination between the concerned departments much headway could have been made in finalization of the policy so far”, sources said, adding “during the past one year even no serious deliberation has been conducted at any level in the Government on the subject and this clearly establishes that Government has completely forgotten eco-tourism promotion”.
Pointing towards the deliberations in the meeting convened by the then Chief Minister on September 17, 2015, sources said that it was revealed in the meeting that Forest Department had identified four sites each in Kashmir and Jammu Divisions namely Bangus Valley, Bojpathri, Tosamaidan, Daksum, Pahalgam, Warwan, Sukrala and Machedi for development as eco-tourism destinations.
“However, this plan has also failed to become reality for want of necessary cooperation between Forest and Tourism Departments”, sources regretted, adding “several years back Jungle Lodges and Resorts Limited, Bangalore, which is successfully running eco-tourism sector in the southern State for the past many decades, had prepared Eco-Tourism Development Plan for Jammu and Kashmir’s Department of Wildlife Preservation but what happened to that plan remains a mystery”.
It is pertinent to mention here that the objective behind framing eco-tourism policy is to provide common platform for promoting eco-tourism and to lay down framework for its growth in an ecologically, socially and economically sustainable manner; provide livelihood opportunities to local communities through eco-tourism and to secure their involvement in conservation of natural resources; develop and enforce standards and norms for eco-tourism activities; ecologically restore already existing popular tourist destinations which have suffered environmental degradation over a period of time etc.
“It is really a matter of serious concern that the PDP-BJP Coalition Government is handling such an important issue in a casual manner”, sources regretted.
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