Meghalaya and the capital city of Shillong are thronging with tourists whose contribution to the local economy is frugal. A good number of such tourists are seen walking around Police Bazar late in the night at 10 pm and above, eating at street corners to cut costs. In the morning they are seen having breakfast again at some of the roadside stalls with no place to even sit but they are fine as long as they can cut costs. The question then is whether these tourists really add to the economy of Meghalaya or whether they only add to the carbon footprints and the garbage that the state is struggling to tackle.
A robust Tourism Policy should take stock of the daily incomes accruing from entrance fees at tourist destinations and home stays/hotels. How many tourists coming to Meghalaya are actually high end tourists and what is the percentage of the low-budget ones? Those earning the most from Meghalaya’s tourism circuits are the tour operators of Guwahati who actually plan the itinerary down to the last detail. Much has been debated about the Assam registered vehicles earning their incomes from transporting tourists to Meghalaya. There were suggestions to copy the Sikkim model where taxis from West Bengal are not allowed beyond a point and tourists must compulsorily hire local Sikkim-registered vehicles. But attempts to stop Assam-registered vehicles at a particular point in Meghalaya beyond which they have to use a Meghalaya-registered vehicle led to Assam taxis staging a dharna and threatening that Meghalaya-registered taxis would not be allowed to enter Assam to drop off or pick up passengers from the airport and railway stations. And that was the end of the effort. Without government to government intervention such arrangements will not work.
The problem is that those in the Government who run the Tourism Department are desk-bound and are hardly aware of what happens on the ground. Tour operators, however, are expected to give constant feedback and find ways and means to improve the entire tourism experience. Sohra seems to have got its act together under the leadership of long-time tour operator Alan West Kharkongor. Young tourism guards have been placed at some of the vantage tourist viewpoints; they instruct tourists not to litter but to pick up the garbage they have thrown and put it in the litter can. For a while now some tourists have been bringing their utensils and cooking stoves and parking anywhere they want to start cooking. In the end they leave behind the leftover food and peels for someone else to clean. This is not the kind of tourism that Meghalaya needs. This state cannot afford to be a garbage dump. Garbage disposal and processing is a huge challenge. As of now the main tourist venues resemble garbage dumps after the tourists leave for the day. Where does the garbage go? Most often it is thrown into the ravines and those who care to look below the viewpoints will see loads of plastic waste which would make it very dangerous for anyone to retrieve. Tourists lack civic sense and this is what the State Tourism Department and tour operators must tackle. Otherwise, the time is not far when the whole of Meghalaya will become a garbage dump. By then no tourist worth his salt would want to visit the place.
