the goan I network
PANAJI
Minimum government, maximum governance may be the mantra that the Manohar Parrikar-led coalition government tom-tommed from the day it took charge of the State in March 2017, but it does not reflect in its Tourism Ministry which has unveiled a draft tourism policy penned by an expensive consultant it engaged -- M/s KPMG Advisory Services Pvt Ltd.
In the draft policy, KPMG proposes an additional tier of governance -- Goa Tourism Board -- to an already crowded regime space, currently occupied by the ministry (Tourism Department) and the State-owned Goa Tourism Development Corporation.
“The Goa Tourism Board (GTB) shall be constituted as a statutory, autonomous body by enacting appropriate legislation,” KPMG’s draft states in its ‘Governance and Institutional Framework’ module of the ‘draft tourism policy’.
Advocating a 14-member body to man the GTB and headed by the tourism minister, the draft policy gives it primacy in the governance regime but, it does not clearly define how it will be separated in authority from the existing Tourism Department and GTDC.
It also does not define the separation of its role from that of the State Investment Promotion Board which currently is the apex body to consider and clear investment proposals in the tourism sector as well.
The draft tourism policy has been examined and approved by the State Government’s evaluation committee, which is headed by the Tourism Secretary. It was recently circulated among legislators and last week Tourism Minister Manohar ‘Babu’ Ajgaonkar convened a meeting at the Secretariat’s ministerial block to deliberate on it and get comments/suggestions from the MLAs.
However, only four MLAs turned up for the meeting who were highly critical of the lack of objectivity in the draft policy.
MLAs apart, the policy also has not gone down well with trade bodies, academicians, experts and other stakeholders, many of who have slammed the GTB proposal. Having the tourism minister as its chairman and several bureaucrats drawn from tourism ministry and other government departments as members is a self-goal and negates the autonomy claim.
At a recent public consultation on the draft policy mentored by the Centre for Responsible Tourism (CRT), prominent academic Nandakumar Kamat slammed the draft as “amateurish”, devoid of any serious ground-level research of the sector as it currently operates and an exercise conducted in drawing rooms and on computer monitors.
“It’s a top-down policy prepared by foreign consultants without understanding the ground realities of the sector in the State,” Kamat had said, adding that proposing the tourism minister to head the GTB was a mockery of the claim of its autonomy.
“How can GTB be autonomous if it will be headed by the Minister?,” Kamat asked.
GTB, according to the draft policy, will be responsible for marketing and promotion of Goa tourism, a task hitherto shouldered by the department and the GTDC.
Development of infrastructure, new tourism services both State-funded and those with private participation, also comes under the GTB’s belt.
The Board also takes on, according to the draft policy, the role of ‘sole authority’ for granting permissions for tourism-related events in the State, a subject that has evoked much controversy in the past vis-a-vis permitting the big-ticket EDM events.
