Tourism ministry to set up multilingual helpline

India will soon have well-equipped, multilingual telephonic contact centre to provide information services to foreign tourists, parliament was informed Tuesday.

The tourism ministry has initiated action to set up a telephonic contact centre with competent, qualified and experienced partners, Culture and Tourism Minister Shripad Yesso Naik told the Lok Sabha in a written reply.

"This service will primarily serve those who are calling from abroad and know very little about travel within India," he said.

"Those who have reached India but don't understand Indian systems or Indian languages, often not even English, will be helped by the helpline," he added.

The government has identified ten international languages - Arabic, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish - for the helpline.

"The ministry will outsource back offices for guidance services," said Naik.

This helpline is expected to start by March 31, 2015.