Editor,
The game of musical chairs being widely publicised and played at the KHADC between the ARPA trio speaks of political egoism and irresponsible leadership. First it was the sudden resignation of Ardent Basawiamoit as CEM followed by an abrupt walk out by Grace Kharpuri from the very party that campaigned for her as MDC, to an immature and irresponsible resignation by Pyniaid Sing Syiem as Dy. Chairman of the ruling coalition. It does not surprise us that regional parties cannot be vouched to deliver in a responsible manner when we have every Tom, Dick and Harry fighting over small matters which unfortunately reflects their own poor image and their over-inflated ego. I personally do not find it insulting or injurious if someone from any political party presents a bouquet to a CEM, CM or even to the Governor on any day or occasion. So what’s the big deal in this case? Those politicians who talk of unity, cohesiveness, diversity, transparency etc…should stop fooling people with these rhetoric. It would be advisable for them to take ‘Sanyas’ from their political careers and let others come in to deliver more efficiently.
Yours etc.,
Dominic S. Wankhar
Shillong -3
Promoting North East tourism
Editor,
Tourism – an industry with a huge potential remained a neglected sector for very long after Independence. It is often a paper tiger than anything tangible. The efforts of the different states of the North East had been great in terms of policies which are announced by different states of the region with every change in government. The programmes announced by the present Government of Meghalaya is different from the conventional methods applied by the others and even the country as a whole. Quoting from your daily ST Oct 15, 2014) ‘Addressing a press conference after the inauguration of the 3rd International Tourism Mart in the city on Tuesday, Chief Minister Mukul Sangma said that organic food will be served to all tourists in hotels from next year and a programme in this regard is being worked out.” Shillong had been host to many such conferences and seminars on promotion of tourism in the state and North East as a whole, and also on what affects them, but they appear as news and are soon forgotten. However, if the present effort is put into practice, it would attract tourists not only from different parts of our country but also from abroad. The Chief Minister further stated that about 20,000 acres of land is in the process of being converted into organic farms by the Agriculture Department, which he said would offer tourists coming into this state unique access to food produced from these farms. It is, in fact a unique step where the beneficiary would not only be the hotels or the restaurateurs of the city but also the farmers and the agriculturists of the state.
However, I wish to pen down a few points for exploring this ‘unexplored paradise’ which is tourism of North East. The region should be promoted as a holistic package rather than a single or separate state circuit. There must be a caption/slogan attached to the North East such as The Hill States Tourism or Adventure Tourism and so on. Young entrepreneurs of the region must form a tourism club involving professionals from different states. The club must organise package tours of the entire region so that the tourists are made to spend more days in our region than just a day that they would normally spend in Shillong and Sohra. Advertisements must be splashed in different media especially popular ones throughout the country so that people would be aware of such programmes.
The programmes must be organised in hill states in such a way that the tourists get to have a taste of all indigenous events within the same tour schedule. If one visits Shillong during Autumn, apart from the normal autumn festival we have in Shillong, one must be able to experience something indigenous to Nagaland, be it Kohima or elsewhere in the state and also probably a theatrical taste of Manipur or folk dances, after that also of something depicting Mizo culture in Mizoram. It would be a composite exercise.
Different activities- based programmes like adventure tourism, must have a schedule containing cave tourism and water rafting in Meghalaya, which may also be linked with other states of the region such as Arunachal Pradesh where avenues are there for adventure and water sports of similar kinds. Governments of each state being only partial stakeholders, the major execution of the Tourism policy should actually remain with the young unemployed professionals of our beautiful region.
Yours etc.,
Dr Saji Verghese,
Shillong- 1