Punjab cabinet dissolves Shivalik Dhauladhar Tourism Board

The Punjab cabinet today dissolved the Shivalik Dhauladhar Tourism Development Board, which was constituted and headed by former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal.
The council of ministers, which met here under the chairmanship of Chief Minister captain Amarinder Singh, also decided to hand over the work of developing the area around Thein Dam at the Ranjit Sagar Lake as a tourism-theme destination to the Punjab Infrastructure Development Board (PIDB).
"The move would help relieve the cash-strapped state government of an unnecessary financial burden", an official spokesperson said, giving details of the cabinet decision.
The cabinet noted that the Shivalik Dhauladhar Tourism Development Board had initiated the process of development of a tourist destination around the lake in PPP mode by taking funds from PIDB.

However, the PIDB itself has sufficient funds, experience and expertise, to execute a project of this scale and quality, the cabinet observed, adding that this made the role of the Shivalik Dhauladhar Board redundant and the entire exercise a wasteful expenditure, the spokesperson said.
In 2014, the Parkash Singh Badal government had constituted the Board to exploit the "huge potential" for tourism in sub-mountain regions along Shivalik hills.