Contribution of Tourism Sector to GDP/Employment As per the 2nd Tourism Satellite Account of India (TSAI) - 2009-10 and subsequent estimation, the contribution of tourism to total GDP (direct and indirect) of the country and the total employment through tourism (direct and indirect) during 2012-13 were 6.88% and 67.0 million, respectively. Steps taken by the Ministry of Tourism to boost tourism and subsequently enhance the employment opportunities in the country include Human Resource Development, Hunar Se Rozgar Tak, Central Financial Assistance to all States/UTs for over all development of Tourism in the country, other facilitation like E-Tourist Visa etc. Under Human Resource Development in order to bridge the huge skill gap existing in Hospitality Industry, Ministry of Tourism has adopted a multipronged strategy to strengthen institutional infrastructure for training and education. At present, there are 21 Central Institutes of Hotel Management (CIHMs), 15 State Institutes of Hotel Management (SIHMs), 7 Food Craft Institutes (FCIs) and 5 Indian Institutes of Tourism and Travel Management (1 Head Quarter and 4 Functional Centres). Apart from these, 15 new SIHMs and 15 FCIs have been sanctioned. In Hunar Se Rozgar Tak Programme the Ministry of Tourism launched a special initiative called Hunar Se Rozgar Tak (HSRT) in the year 2009-10 for creation of employable skills amongst youth. This initiative is fully funded by the Ministry of Tourism. The features common to the training programmes under the HSRT are: the trainees should be in the age group of 18-28 years; each training programme is of short duration - 6-8 weeks; and no fees is chargeable to the trainee. Over 1.94 lakh persons have been trained under the programme upto 31/03/2015. This information was given by the Union Minister of State for Tourism (Independent Charge), Culture (Independent Charge), and Civil Aviation, Dr. Mahesh Sharma in written reply to an unstarred question in the Rajya Sabha today. NB/NK/PB
