Tenth Plan

The approach in the Tenth Plan is to stimulate investment and encourage the State Governments to develop unique tourism products suited to their genius. The aim is to enhance the employment potential within the tourism sector as well as to foster economic integration through developing linkages with other sectors.

The Tenth Plan attempts to:

• Position tourism as a major engine of economic growth.
• Harness the direct and multiplier effects of tourism for employment generation, economic development and providing im0etus to rural tourism.
• Provide a major thrust to domestic tourism which will act as a spring-board for growth and expansion of international tourism.
• Position India as a global brand to take advantage of the burgeoning global travel and trade and the vast untapped potential of India as a destination.
• Acknowledge the critical role of private sector with government working as an active facilitator and catalyst.
• Create and develop integrated tourist circuits based on India’s unique civilization, heritage and culture in partnership with States, Private Sector and other agencies.
• Ensure that tourist to India gets “physically invigorated, mentally rejuvenated, culturally enriched, spiritually elevated” and “feels India within him”.

India’s travel and tourism share of total employment at 2.9 per cent is extremely low compared to other nations. There is great potential for creating an enormous number of new jobs through travel and tourism. The employment potential is the highest in the tourism sector as compared to any other sector. The tourism industry has a very strong linkage to socio-economic progress of the country. It has a very high revenue capital ratio.

The cardinal principles for the tourism development strategy adopted in the Tenth Plan are as follows:

• Tourism has been recognized as a primary means for achieving high economic growth to deliver the social objective of a superior quality of life.
• Focus has been provided on integrated development of tourism circuits and destination development, based on India’s unique civilization, heritage and culture in partnership with states, private sector and other agencies.
• India’s competitiveness as a tourism product is being built through enhancing the visitor experience across all dimensions – such as facilitation, service excellence, and safety and security so that the tourist to India gets “physically invigorated, mentally rejuvenated, culturally enriched, spiritually elevated” and “feels India within him”.
• Due importance is being given to Domestic Tourism.
• In conjunction with its quality positioned as a value for money destination that delivers a superior visitor experience than its competitors at the same or a lower price. A primary means to achieve this is the reduction of transaction costs.
• Widespread partnerships between development agencies (Governments, PRIs, NGOs) are the key to achieving decentralized tourism development and promotion.
• India is building a more robust tourism market through regional co-operation between tourism destination, both domestically and internationally.
• Information technology is being made the primary medium for the marketing and distribution of the India tourism product.
• The economic impact of tourism is being enhanced through furthering the linkages of tourism across the economy.
• The role of Government is to create an enabling environment where private sector investment can occur, as well as to take a leadership role in product development.

The Working Group on Tourism set up by the Planning Commission had assessed a requirement of Rs. 5586 crores during the Tenth Plan for development of tourism infrastructure and promotion of tourism in the country. However, Ministry of Tourism proposed Rs. 5500 crores for the Tenth Plan. The Planning Commission has indicated an outlay of Rs. 2900 crores.

The details of funds allocated and expenditure incurred during the first three years of the Tenth Plan (2002-2007) are given below:

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.