Finally, People’s Own Tourism gets Rs 50 lakh
Minister had put his foot down and made it clear that additional funds were required
By : R Ayyappan
Update: 2015-06-11 06:38 GMT
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Tourism minister A. P. Anil Kumar finally has his way. His ambitious responsible tourism initiative, ‘God’s Own Country, People’s Own Tourism’ (POT), which had not found a mention in K. M. Mani’s latest budget and was feared would be starved of funds, has been granted Rs 50 lakh as a first instalment. This means the project, which had found a place in the chief minister’s ‘Mission 676’, will take off this year itself as earlier planned.
However, it was a struggle for the tourism minister to secure independent funds for the POT project, which was devised to take Responsible Tourism (RT) to a higher orbit. When funds were sought, the finance department had told the tourism department to divert the Rs 1 crore allocated in the budget for RT for the purpose.
According to sources, the minister had put his foot down and made it clear that additional funds were required and not a single rupee would be taken out of RT for the purpose. POT is an RT initiative to improve rural household income and which was given pride of place in the governor’s address. In fact, the project was originally promised Rs 5 crore. But when Mani presented his budget, he allocated just Rs 1 crore for the myriad projects under RT. This ironically was less than the money spent for a promotional video for the project.