TN gears up for ‘Clean India’ drive

Though Tamil Nadu has numerous attractive spots, with many of them being unblemished, there are certain areas where adequate attention ought to be bestowed to transform the tourist destinations spick and span.

Sharing the concerns of the Union tourism ministry over the dip in the arrival of foreign nationals due to unhygienic and unclean spots in some areas, the state government has planned to launch the ‘Campaign Clean India’, soon. About Rs5 crore has been set apart for taking up a massive campaign across the state.

According to sources, the campaign would be taken up at Marina beach, Besant Nagar beach, certain important temples, heritage centres, waterfalls, hill stations and boating areas. Steps will be taken to create awareness on taking up solid waste management projects in such places. Students and various organisations would be involved to spread awareness among the public, especially the tourists, on keeping the tourist spots clean and hygienic.

In order to ensure the campaign a success, the government would involve the district collectors, schools and colleges, besides certain government departments to keep the tourism destinations clean and hygienic. The private sector would also be roped in for the campaign.

The department would formulate an action plan to provide toilets and rest rooms of high standards at all tourist centres through public private partnership basis. The Centre has agreed to fund the scheme for this fiscal.

Tamil Nadu is ranked second in the country in terms of attracting foreign tourists and third in attracting domestic visitors. As per statistics available, 11.16 crore domestic tourists and 28.05 lakh foreign tourists visited Tamil Nadu during 2010. The arrivals increased to 13.68 crore (domestic tourists) and 33.08 lakh (foreigners) respectively in 2011.

Cleanliness campaign on fast track

The Union tourism ministry’s initiative: Campaign Clean India, to ensure an acceptable level of cleanliness and hygiene at various public places, is gaining momentum. The idea to take up the ‘campaign’ was first mooted at national-level during the fag end of 2011.

It was only recently that the Union tourism minister Subodh Kant Sahai launched a pilot project under the CCI at Qutub Minar. The campaign is a part of the efforts to increase the foreign tourist arrivals to 12 million under the 12th Five Year plan.

The targeted increase in foreign tourists arrivals and also the domestic tourists visits would take the foreign exchange earnings to Rs1,34,383 crore, resulting in an additional FEE of Rs69,494 crore. This will add up to 77.5 million direct and indirect jobs in the tourism sector across the country.

While the cleaning of the Marina beach by the state machinery is on, private players too have chipped in. Recently, the students of the Hospitality and Hotel Administration, SRM Institute of Hotel Administration, participated in a campaign to clean up the beach at Mamallapuram.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/164398" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-b2bd7130496f212d8e287354641325a5" value="form-b2bd7130496f212d8e287354641325a5" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85265214" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.