Long way to go for city to sustain itself as prime tourist destination, say residents

On World Tourism Day, stakeholders in the hospitality sector reminded the government that the holy city grapples with civic mess, unorganised traffic, safety and security concerns of visitors and staff scarcity in Tourism Department.

Satnam Singh, a hotelier, said barring the Heritage Street leading to Jallianwala Bagh and the Golden Temple, the rest of the roads inside the walled city are in a deplorable condition. Heaps of garbage has not been lifted and waste lies strewn on roads. All these put off visitors.

Irregular mopping and sweeping of roads besides tardy lifting of garbage were the prime reasons for not popularising heritage and the Panj Sarovar walks that kicked off years ago in the walled city.

Tour and travel operator Sarbjit Singh said haphazard parking of vehicles, insistence of store owners and customers on parking their vehicles outside stores and absence of adequate parking lots nearby are adding to the parking woes inside the walled city. All these factors together create traffic chaos.

Even as the government set up the Amritsar Culture and Tourism Development Authority (ACTDA) after the cabinet passed it in 2016, it failed to bring in all tourist sites under its control. A plan to set up an independent office and hire staff did not fructify.

Notably, ACTDA has the Chief Minister as its Chairman, Ministers of Tourism and Cultural Affairs, Local Government, Chief Secretary, Principal Secretary to CM, Principal Secretary of the Department of Tourism and Cultural Affairs, Secretary, Public Relations and Technical Advisor to the CM, as members; Additional Chief Secretary, Principal Department of Finance; Additional Chief Secretary/Principal Secretary, Department of Local Government; Director, Tourism and Cultural Affairs, are its member secretaries.

Yet till date, its jurisdiction is restricted to the Heritage Street and the Golden Temple entrance plaza while and it neither has any office nor staff.

The position of General Manager of the ACTDA has been lying vacant for nearly four years. Now, there is no official of the Authority in the city which is categorised as the top most tourist destination in North India. To carry out the activities of the Authority, the fund was to be provided by the state government out of the cess collected under the excise policy or any other source.

Gurinder Singh Johal, a tourist guide, said the Punjab government conducted a survey on room availability and tourist footfall in the holy city nearly 13 years ago during the fiscal 2011-2012. In the absence of any latest survey, it was grappling with policy paralysis.

Tourists often become targets of mugging. Many of them have lost their lives in snatching incidents. In June, four members of a tourist family from Jharkhand were injured when two bike-borne persons tried to snatch the purse of a woman near Khasa, while they were on their way to the city from Attari-Wagah joint check-post (JCP) after watching the retreat ceremony.

Tourists are an easy target for the snatchers, especially those coming from Attari during the late evening hours.