Principal Secretary, Tourism and Industries Navin Kumar Choudhary convened a meeting of the officers and the representatives associated with Tourism, Industries, Trade and allied sectors at Tourist Facilitation Centre (TFC), here today.Deputy Commissioner and CEO LAHDC, Kargil Baseer-ul-Haq Choudhary, Director Industries and Commerce Kashmir Mehmood Shah, MD SIDCO Ravinder Kumar, Director Tourism Kashmir Nisar Ahmad Wani, other concerned officers, members of the All Kargil Travel and Trade Association (AKKTA) besides the representatives associated with trade and industries attended the meeting.The Principal Secretary said that Government is endeavouring to give impetus to Tourism and Industries sector in Kargil district and concrete measures are underway to achieve this goal which include among other steps the creation of tourism infrastructure, publicity campaigns and provision of incentives to entrepreneurs for development of industries.Navin Choudhary also listened to the issues of the hoteliers and owners of industrial units and assured them all their genuine concerns would be given due consideration and resolved in a phased manner.The Principal Secretary directed the DC Kargil to organize workshops for persons associated with tourism, trade and industry in order to thoroughly understand their needs and developmental requirements which would be projected during the J&K Investors Summit.Navin assured the representatives of AKKTA that with the objective to create trained and skilled local staff for the hotel industry in the district, a team from the Indian Institute of Hotel Management will be sent to the district soon which would impart training to receptionists, waiters, cooks and other staff.
He said that it would be a yearly feature through which professional training would be imparted to batches of 40-50 candidates once or on demand even twice a year.The Principal Secretary said that incentives for hoteliers are now available through the Industries Department. He directed the concerned officers to clear all pending incentive cases within the stipulated time frame.In order to impart awareness about Industries schemes for young entrepreneurs and hoteliers, the Principal Secretary directed the officers concerned to organize an orientation program within a week’s time.The Principal Secretary said that as a part of the Government’s efforts to project the tourism potential of Kargil at the national and international level a fame tour of eminent travel journalists, photographers and travel writers would be organized to various tourist destinations in the district in near future.Navin also instructed the officers concerned to outsource all assets of Kargil Development Agency (KDA) for a period of 15 years. He asked the concerned to prepare the list of assets and submit the proposal in this regard for necessary approval in a week’s time.To give boost to wildlife tourism in the district, the Principal Secretary asked the Director Tourism Kashmir to prepare a wildlife tourism brochure for Kargil.Various issues including the operationalization of air services to Kargil, promotion of brown bear sightseeing in areas like Drass and Sankoo by holding road shows, brochures and films, institution of young entrepreneur awards, conservation, listing and cataloguing of artefacts and several other related issues also came up for thorough discussion during the meeting. Later the Principal Secretary also visited the Munshi Aziz Bhat Museum of Central Asian Trade and Kargili artefacts and appreciated its unique and rare artefacts collection.