Apathy in taking up tourism projects : Case in point - Tutla

The state tourism department keeps announcing new tourism projects all the time. However, how many of them are really being executed is a big question in my mind.

In February of 2009, when the then Union Minister of State , Kanti Singh, had visited Bihar , he had ambitiously announced that Tutla waterfalls would be developed as a major eco and adventure tourism site of international importance. (Read India's Own Grand Canyon - Tutla (Tutala) Waterfalls)

Today after almost 4 years, there is no news or progress in developing the Tutla waterfalls. Forget any progress, there are still no pictures available of Tutla that is spread over 240 sq kms.

But the apathy doesn't end there. As I understand, the Central Tourism ministry will only take up projects when the state tourism department sends a proposal to the center. However, Bihar's tourism department did not think that its worth taking up such a project proposal across. Amazing that no one has thought of putting together such a proposal that too for a place which had tremendous tourism potential.

Over the last 1.5 years, I have written atleast 8 times to various tourism ministers at state and center, tourism secretaries, Chief Minister, Chief Minister's secretaries, PAs, etc but have not received a response ever from anyone except from Mr. Sandeep Kumar, who is the PS to the current Tourism Minister of State. His response was  - Has the state govt sent any proposal?

Beyond that nothing. This was in September of 2011. Subsequent messages to the various people did not yield in any responses.

If this is the way the tourism department works in Bihar, then Bihar will never be able to capitalize on the tourism potential it possesses. And tourism is the 2nd most important avenue for Bihar's growth after agriculture. Do we really need bureaucrats like the current, who are inactive and cannot even take through identified projects in 4 years time. Infact the entire bureaucracy needs a revamp... It appears that most of them are not seeing my mails (so not responding) or are just ineffective or  are not doing their work. The list of people that I have written to are
 

Sandeep Kumar	PS to MoS - Center
tourismminister@nic.in	Minister of Tourism - Center
Sultan Ahmed	MoS Tourism - Central
S. K. Pintu	Bihar Minister for Tourism
secytourismbihar@yahoo.com	Tourism Secretary - Bihar
directortourismbihar@gmail.com	Director Tourism - Bihar
jd.tourism1@gmail.com	Joint Director Tourism - Bihar
dy.directortourism@gmail.com	Dy. Director Tourism – Bihar
Ghufran Ahmad	Assistant Director - Tourism (Bihar)
Priteshwar Prasad	Assistant Director - Tourism (Bihar)

And then follow-ups with the following

Nitish Kumar	CM of Bihar
cms-secy-bih@nic.in	Chief Minister's Secretary
gc-cms-bih@nic.in	Public Grievance Cell – Bihar
ps1-cms-bih@nic.in	Private Secretary to CM

Snapshots of my mails are as follows:

Email 1

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Prashant	Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 11:33 PM
To: Tourism Minister, Sultan Ahmed, Sandeep Kumar
Dear Sirs, I had read about an article sometime back when the erstwhile Tourism Minister of State had announced that Tutla Waterfalls will be developed as a Tourist destination and it was the Grand Canyon of India. This happened on Feb 10, 2009. I was trying to find out information on the progress of this project but could not find any further information on this , hence writing to you. http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-02-10/patna/28010413_1_mundeshwari-union-minister-site Would it be possible to get an update on the project? Will appreciate to get any feedback on this. Regards Prashant

Email 2

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Sandeep Kumar  Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 8:59 PM Reply-To: Sandeep Kumar  To: "Prashant" Has the state govt sent any proposal? Sent from my Nokia phone -----Original Message----- From: Prashant Sent:  21/09/2011, 1:12  AM To: Tourism Minister, Sultan Ahmed, Sandeep Kumar Subject: Re: Tutla Water falls - Status Hi, I was hoping to hear back on this. Do let me know. Regards Prashant On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 11:33 PM, Prashant  wrote:  Dear Sirs,  I had read about an article sometime back when the erstwhile Tourism  Minister of State had announced that Tutla Waterfalls will be developed as a  Tourist destination and it was the Grand Canyon of India. This happened on  Feb 10, 2009. I was trying to find out information on the progress of this  project but could not find any further information on this , hence writing  to you.  http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-02-10/patna/28010413_1_mundeshwari-union-minister-site  Would it be possible to get an update on the project?  Will appreciate to get any feedback on this.  Regards  Prashant

Email 3 Prashant  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 5:42 PM To: Nitish Kumar Cc: Grievance Cell - Bihar, Private Secretary to CM No replies from anyone. ----- On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 1:04 PM, Prashant  wrote: Dear Nitishji, While I know you are very busy on getting the special status and necessary support from the center to accelerate Bihar's development, there are areas that need focus like tourism which can help continue the growth of Bihar while we wait for more industries to come. I was very excited about the Tutla Water falls project when it was reported in Feb 2009 as it seemed to have an immense potential not only to attract foreign tourists but domestic tourists as well. However, I am dismayed to see that there was no follow up done by either the Bihar tourism ministry or Center's tourism ministry. The center was expecting a proposal from Bihar for Tutla's development and apparently that proposal has not gone. I had written a couple of mails to various people in the ministries and I did get a reply only from Sandeep Kumar (part of Center's tourism department) asking whether the Bihar government had sent across the proposal, but did not get any other response. I think some of these areas do have a strong potential and just requires focus. Whether people reply to me or not is immaterial as long as the work continues. I wanted to bring this to your notice as it often helps drive development across Bihar. Thanks Prashant ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Prashant Date: Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 3:19 PM Subject: Re: Tutla Water falls - Status To:Tourism Minister – Central, Sultan Ahmed, Sandeep Kumar, S. K. Pintu, Tourism Secretary – Bihar, Director Tourism – Bihar, Joint Director Tourism – Bihar, Dy. Director Tourism – Bihar, Ghfran Ahmad (Asst Dir – Tourism, Bihar), Priteshwar (Asst Dir- Tourism, Bihar) I haven't had a response in almost a year. Can any of you senior people respond to my query on Tutla Waterfalls please. Thanks Prashant www.progressgivebihar.com What can I say. The Tourism department needs to become agile and focussed. And so do the others in the bureaucracy. Otherwise Bihar will still remain the 8th or 9th state in the ranks of the number of tourists visiting Bihar, whereas it has the potential to becoming one amongst the Top 5 states.