Himachal needs to do a lot more in tourism : Centre

The Centre on Monday said the Himachal Pradesh government had failed in achieving optimum growth in the tourism sector across the hill state.

“Apart from Shimla and Manali, the state needs to develop tourism in the entire state, particularly lesser known places like Kinnaur, Lahaul & Spiti,” said Ashwani Kumar, Union minister of state for planning, science and technology and earth sciences.

Kumar has been in Shimla holding meetings with state chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal and top officials of the state for the last couple of days.

“If tourism develops evenly, it will have a trickledown effect on most others sectors,” he said .

 

The Union minister also talked about setting up special economic zones in the state to promote non-polluting industries like information technology, pharmaceuticals, bio-technology and the herbal industry so as to generate more jobs in the future.

“We have already identified zones to be developed as SEZs,” he said .

Talking about the untapped hydro-power potential in the state he said the state needs to optimise this growth .

“Currently applications for 80 hydro power projects are awaiting environment clearance with the Centre . We have asked for a detailed report from the state so that these projects can be cleared .”

He cautioned the state government that even though it was making efforts to create education hubs , this should not be done at the cost of lowering the quality of higher education .

“In a state where 90 per cent of the people in jobs are employed by the government , tourism , industry hydro power and other sectors need to grow and achieve a balance ,” said Kumar .

“Since majority of the population still lives in villages the state also needs to increase area under irrigation . To increase the agriculture base the irrigated area must go up substantially from the current 23 per cent ,” he said .

The minister said he would take up with the planning commission the finance commission recommendations as some of the allocations and liabilities have not been carried out properly .