In the Eighth and Ninth Plans, a large number of small projects were sanctioned which resulted in the resources being spread very thinly and at the same time rendering, monitoring extremely difficult.
The old schemes for providing assistance to the State Governments have now been revamped and all the schemes have been merged into two following major schemes:
- Integrated Development of Tourism Circuits and
- Product / Infrastructure and Destination Development. As a result, projects are now sanctioned in a focused manner which creates beter impact. Earlier, there was supposed to be a contribution from the State Governments for these projects. It was found that therew was substantial delay by the State Governments in release of their share and at times it was never released. Therefore, under the new schemes the identified projects are fully funded by the Government of India and the role of the state Government would be to provide land, external infrastructure, maintenance of the assets created, etc.
In order to ensure timely implementation and also co-ordination between various Departments involved in the projects sanctioned under the schemes for Circuit Development, Destination Development and Rural Tourism, the Ministry of Tourism has requested all the State Governments/UT Administrations to constitute State level Monitoring Committees under the chairmanship of Secretary(Tourism) including the DC of the districts concerned, representatives of the implementing agencies such as CPWD, HUDCO, ASI, Indiatourism, local authorities etc.
