Making tourism go rural — and bankable

Harjeet Ahluwalia

A critical area that India has ignored all these years, and continues to do so, is integration of infrastructure development with services — the sunrise sector on which growth hopes are pinned worldwide. Financial sector services, information technology, hospitality, etc., can all be clubbed in a comprehensive strategy towards development of the largest employment provider in the world: tourism.

There is widespread concern over the fall-out of the terrorist attacks in the US on tourism internationally. Institutional efforts are on by the International Air Transport Association and the World Tourism Organisation, etc., to rally governments in support of the critical segments of travel and tourism. A sizeable number of progressively-thinking nations are fully backing their carriers and tourism trade as well. Still, a much larger number of players need to come together and cobble a workable strategy to restore traveller confidence in general.

India, in particular, ought to closely watch and involve itself in reshaping this post-WTC scenario. This could help it get over its long-standing disadvantages of poor infrastructure coupled with pitifully half-baked and tacky efforts to sell itself as a tourist destination.
A gaping hole in the Indian tourism landscape is rural infrastructure.
To a rank outsider here to peep at our culture and heritage, the Indian roadside is that single feature en route to popular tourist destinations which is highly representative of the all-pervasive neglect of basic amenities. Of course, there is much to be desired in urban infrastructure as well. But in the countryside, pictures of abandoned huts, disused farm vehicles, open toilets, garbage and refuse piles, overgrown meadows, etc., unfold a tale that needs no telling by human speech.

In places where there is no food, no clothing, no road, no electricity, signs of deprivation hang eloquently from such symbols. Even if rudimentary infrastructure is in place, it lacks presentable or acceptable forms of hospitality avenues. Roadside eateries can be so ramshackle that tourists will not stop to buy bottled water there, leave alone tea or snacks. Such outlets may serve the drudgery-stricken locals well enough, but there is a strong case for the tourism industry tying up with industrial houses, banks and even state government institutions to spruce up the rural side of Indian culture.
The banking institutions today are overflowing with cash. Indeed, banks have been crying hoarse over the need for innovative, bankable projects to beef up rural infrastructure. Rural roads alone require Rs 4.5 lakh crore worth of expenditure. A tourism ministry paper over five years back had laid out an ambitious roadmap for developing purely tourism-related infrastructure, and the estimated cost of such development was then pegged at Rs 60,000 crore-plus.

It would be no surprise if the paper has, by now, been recycled by moths. Industry, too, has little to look forward to in these days of slump. It is also fuming over the government’s inability to get going the rural economy. Roads and communications are core to prosperity in these areas. If the states are unwilling for political reasons to commit public spending on villages and talukas, it is time for industries and large houses to spur this urge among states.

Once investment flows in through infrastructure to tourism, there will be a steady flow of employment avenues downstream. More jobs can easily generate a higher demand for goods in those areas, apart from stemming the ever-growing tide of immigrants into towns and cities. It is a matter of concern, indeed, that industry should always wait for incentives and prodding from governments — it is time to reverse pressure points and fulfil some of its obligations towards the larger sections of society: that of driving development through their own initiatives. Once jobs create enough awareness in the market, those who can afford it and see its benefits will respond to the call of education — thereby inducing growth of primary education and thereafter healthcare. And all these are sectors that banks would be game to help, provided borrowers can assure enough commitment to the cause and industriously work for returns.

It should not be difficult for industries or even apex chambers to identify villages with high cultural appeal, take them over on a contractual, turnkey basis. This does not need changes in the oft-quoted land ceiling laws. Such sponsors could provide the inhabitants the expertise and wherewithal to maintain roads, pavements, electricity connections, water pipelines, even ethnic shopping malls, and also keep a constant watch through outsourcing to the locals themselves. Strategic tie-ups with tour operators could fetch droves of town-weary domestic and foreign tourists to well-maintained spots. If their contact with the outside world can be ensured, many of the 10-million-odd domestic tourists too will be less loth to make such forays. Private helipads, chartered mini trains, cultural, health and winter tourism are just a few of the many novel means to dispense with a general unwillingness to travel across India.

With such institutional backing, bankers to the selfsame industries would be more comfortable lending for village development. Rope in the panchayats, the local magistrates and collectors, and the scene could change drastically for the better. It cannot be that no such gesture will find reciprocity among rural entrepreneurs.

For starters, investment in pilot projects at prudently chosen tourism circuits can go a long way in putting the Indian map high on the travel agenda. The players have been present all along, only the will is lacking.