Shopian: Though the tourism sector, one of the important components of State’s economy, remains under constant focus of the state government, unemployed tourism professionals don’t get any attention and remain a neglected lot.
Tourism is a labour intensive industry which has resulted in job creation and generated a lot of economic activities in primary, secondary and tertiary sectors in state. And it is because of this fact the a good number of students from valley prefer to get degree in the subject from the state as well as outside.
However, the state government continues to remain indifferent towards these professionals.
Khursheed Ahmad Wani president of All Jammu & Kashmir Unemployed Tourism Professionals Association (AJKUTPA) told Kashmir Images that the association has been struggling since 2008 for the implementation of Rehbar-e-Sehayat scheme.
“The scheme was already approved in 2008 during PDP-Congress alliance government. But due to Amarnath land row the scheme was not implemented and our file remains buried in some cupboard of civil secretariat somewhere,” Wani said.
“We approached to Ankit Choudhary of J&K CM’s grievance cell and provided him all essential documents and list of all candidates of this association but no action was taken,” he said, adding, “We were supposed to register ourselves through a portal made by the CM’s grievance cell two months back. More than 400 candidates registered through that portal but government is yet to come up with any decision.”
One of the representative of AJKUPTA, Mohammad Iqbal Naik from Durpora village of Shopian district said that government is investing in all other sectors and has already made policies for education, sports, agriculture, forest and animal husbandry under different Rehbar schemes, but tourism is being left out.
Another member of the association said that there are lot of vacancies in tourism department but still the government is not taking any initiative to create job opportunities for those having degrees in tourism.
The association has appealed the Chief Minister and the Tourism Minister to look into the matter and implement the Rehbar-e-Siyahat scheme without any delay.
