Guidelines to be issued for panchayats

[1]

Kottayam: The Kerala State Planning Board would bring out guidelines by next year for grama panchayats so that they could take part in Responsible Tourism
initiatives, state planning board member C.P. John said here on Friday.

Speaking at the three-day International Conference on Responsible Tourism at Kumarakom, he said the state had allocated `4,000 crore for local self government bodies, but they did not have any guidelines to follow in order to spend the money.

Local bodies could contribute enormously to responsible tourism but they needed to be given the freedom to spend money on such projects from their own funds and given specific directions on how to do so, Mr John maintained.

He added that the move would allow panchayats which fall under current destinations to subsidize and provide other incentives to tourism oriented projects and facilitate their transformation from simple vacation spots to RT destinations.

“It will institutionalize the interface between the tourism industry and local self government bodies,” Mr John said, while speaking at a discussion on Local Self Government and Civil Society at the
conference.

Smt K.B. Valsala Kumari, Director, Kudumbashree detailed the initiatives taken by members of the women’s empowerment movement to support RT.Smt Dhanya Sabu, president of Kumarakom grama panchayat explained the much-lauded RT initiatives at the backwater hotspot and how it had transformed lives and livelihoods. KITTS director Dr Rajashree Ajith moderated the discussion.