The Union Minister for Tourism, K Chiranjeevi has urged the corporate world to join hands with Ministry of Tourism to promote Campaign clean India.
MoT has taken the initiative of launching the Clean India campaign with a vision to ensure an acceptable level of cleanliness and hygiene practices at tourist destinations through the involvement of private and public sector stakeholders as a part of their corporate social responsibility.
During an Interaction with CII Tourism Committee Members in the Capital, the Minister also announced setting up of six MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences & Exhibitions) centers in the country adding that world class culinary institutes will be set up at at Tirupati, Kolkata and Noida by the end of this year. Notably, thus far the country does not have any MICE policy in place. India Convention Promotion Bureau (ICPB) has recently launched its Vision Document as a long-term strategy to position India as a preferred MICE destination in the world. The Vision Document takes into account the time span till 2015.
When India Hospitality Review spoke to a member of the CII committee to get details of the meeting, she said, “The clean Indian initiative was mooted during the Subodh Kant Sahay tenure and as yet not much has come out of it. As far as the details of the infra projects are concerned, the Minister only gave an outline of his plans.”
Nakul Anand, Chairman, CII National Committee on Tourism, & Executive Director, ITC Ltd. emphasized that while there have been achievements at the centre, the effort at the centre must be dovetailed with the activities at the States.
“The ministry wants hotels to come forward to help in the maintenance and upkeep of heritage properties and monuments to make them more tourist -friendly,” said the CII member. “They can too pick up a monument and maintain it through various innovative CSR measures.”
A number of Hotel Management Institutes have already adopted the clean India campaign. No direct role from any hospitality player has been sought thus far, said a source.
“Clean India is an excellent initiative that needs strong ministry support. We will be happy to help in spreading the message,” said Param kanampilly, CMD of Concept Hospitality that is renowned for its green and clean initiatives in the field of hospitality.