Mysore: With homestays mushrooming rapidly of late, many of them unauthorisedly, the Kodagu district administration on Thursday came up with a plan to regularise them.
The action comes weeks after MLC and senior Janata Dal (Secular) leader, M.C. Nanaiah alleged that unauthorised homestays were being used for immÂoral activity and appealed for a crackdown on them.
Deputy Commissioner Anurag Tewari, who chaired a meeting on Thursday to discuss strategies on ways to regularise the unauthorised homestays without hampering promotion of tourism, said a detailed action plan had been prepared to tackle the problem.
While only 216 homestays are registered with the authorities, Tewari explained the rest could not be termed illegal. “Under Karnataka’s tourÂism policy we can’t penalise the owners of homestays for not registering. It’s more of a voluntary thing.
However, under the proposed new tourism policy, which is likely to come up for approval during the winter assembly session, a more detailed methodology has been worked out to prevent unauthorised tourism facilities from coming up in the district.
Until then we will have to work with the present tools,” he said, adding that directions had been issued to Chesscom, the commercial tax and city municipality to ensure the homestays followed the guidelines laid down under civil laws.
The issue will be discussed at the District Tourism Council meeting in December as well.
Tewari also directed the superintendent of police to keep a check on the increasing number of unauthorised adventure camps in Kodagu and warned that recreation clubs that didn’t comply with the new set of guidelines issued by the state government would be closed down.
