On Arunachal tour, Soni to give state a tourism fillip

Apart from this strew of inaugurations, Soni plans to do some serious business there. This includes deliberations on reviewing the existing Restricted Area Permit (RAP)/ Protected Area Permit (PAP) and Inner Line Permit (ILP) regime in the northeast states, and also modification of land laws to facilitate investment in the tourism sector from outside the states.

The Ministry of Tourism had taken up the issue of relaxing permit regimes like ILP, PAP and RAP with the Home Ministry, to make the region more tourist friendly.

The project for integrated development of the Bhalukpong-Tawang Circuit, currently held up due to unavailability of land, will also be taken up in the meetings.

The Tourism Ministry also has plans to set up a regional Tourism Board, headed by a representative of the Ministry of Tourism, with representatives from all eight states and from the private sector to coordinate all tourism development activities in the northeast region.

Proposals for construction of an Airport near Itanagar will also be taken up at the meetings.

“We are planning to develop Arunachal Pradesh as a unique sustainable eco-tourism destination with emphasis on the ‘Alert Independent Traveller and not Mass Tourism’. Arunachal Pradesh has tremendous tourism potential for becoming a niche tourism destination,” said a senior ministry official.

Underlining the fact that tourism development in the northeast needs to be different from that in the rest of the country, the Union Tourism Ministry plans to ask the Arunachal Pradesh Government to implement the highly localised Communitisation Programme, currently being implemented in Nagaland. The Ministry of Tourism also plans to fund such projects under the Destination Development / Rural Tourism Schemes.

The Ministry has already approved three tourism circuits in the state – Bhalukpong Tawang Tourist Circuit, Dibrugarh-Passighat-Daying Ering Wildlife Sanctuary and Likabali-Basar-Along-Yumbung.