Birla for measures to safeguard safety of international tourists

New Delhi, Oct 19: Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Wednesday suggested training tourist guides and designated police personnel in multiple foreign languages and developing a multilingual app to make tourists visiting India feel at greater ease.
In his address at the opening session of a day-long national conference on tourist police, he asserted that efforts should be made so that not a single crime happens against any tourist.
Top officers of various states and Union Territories attended the conference organised by the Ministry of Tourism in coordination with the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Bureau of Police Research and Development at Vigyan Bhawan here.
A senior official of the BPR&D shared a report on the ‘Tourist Police Scheme’ which also quoted official data on crimes against foreigners reported in India.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, a total of 409 cases of crimes against foreigners including murder, rape and theft were recorded in 2019, with Delhi accounting for the highest 123 cases.
Delhi was followed by Maharashtra (48 cases), Karnataka (46 cases), Tamil Nadu (23 cases) and Goa (21 cases). During the presentation, it was also mentioned that maximum number of such cases pertained to theft (41 per cent of total cases) in 2019.
On the sidelines of the event, a senior Tourism ministry official said a uniform tourism scheme is likely to be rolled out by the Centre “by athe end of this financial year”. Since law and order is a state subject, so this conference also in a way suggest to them to adopt the new scheme or improve the old ones. Delhi, Goa, Kerala, Rajasthan and Meghalaya have their own tourist police, the official said.
During the conference, the best practices and experiences of some of the states, which have implemented their own tourist police, were shared, officials said.
In his address, Birla said, “Many foreign tourists, especially those in the age bracket of 50 – 60 years, wish to speak in their own language. So it is important to be multilingual as per the needs of the tourists and our policy should factor in that aspect”.
As a result, if guides and tourist police personnel can be multilingual or can be taught elementary phrases in multiple foreign languages, a tourist can be better facilitated and they will also feel more at ease during interactions, he said. (PTI)