By Ranjan K Baruah
We have published about tourist guides as career option in the last edition. This time, we will talk more about the topic as Meghalaya has immense potential for tourist guides. There are also scopes for state-level guides or district-level guides.
The state-level guides will also be eligible to apply for licences to work as regional guides provided they qualify (a) the common selection process based on merit as detailed above for the selection of various categories of RLGs and (b) the examination and viva voce after the training. The applicant should be at least 20 years of age on the date of the first advertisement appearing in the media for selection.
The assessment of the requirement of Tourist Guides, region-wise, could be as per the inbound tourist arrivals, number of ASI monuments, available licensed guides, growth potential, availability of assignments to guides and all other relevant factors and would normally be done once in two years by the Ministry through a pre-defined process involving the stake holders. The process of selection would be undertaken by the Indian Institute of Tourism & Travel Management, Gwalior or any other Institute designated by the Ministry of Tourism for conducting this process.
An entrance test would be conducted to evaluate the general intelligence and suitability of applicants for admission to guide training. The contents of test would be knowledge of monuments/tourism destinations in the region, Indian history and Indian Culture; General Knowledge for Linguist Guides, the written test would be conducted in the concerned foreign language.
The area of operation of the Regional Level Guides are as under:
North East: States of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim & Tripura.
North: Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Union Territory of Chandigarh.
South: Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and UTs of Pondicherry & Lakshadweep.
Western & Central: States of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Goa and Union Territories of Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu.
Eastern: West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Union Territory of Andaman & Nicobar Islands.
One may become guides approved from the ministry or they may be independent. Meghalaya and NE has many tourist destinations and our students may think of becoming tourist guides and earn their livelihood.
(With inputs from the Ministry of Tourism website)
(Ranjan K Baruah is a career mentor and can be reached at [email protected] or 9864055558 for any career related queries)