Recently, I was commissioned to do a story on Indian states that are unusual destinations for tourism and are busy promoting themselves as a sylvan paradise for the intrepid traveller
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Recently, I was commissioned to do a story on Indian states that are unusual destinations for tourism and are busy promoting themselves as a sylvan paradise for the intrepid traveller. While the plug was around Chhattisgarh that has recently been declared as the "State at Display" by the Ministry of Tourism, my real job was to find out three such other states that were similarly unusual and were trying to promote themselves.
After some research, I narrowed down on Jharkhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. Having heard about and experienced theu00a0 "government style of working" and rampant red tapism in the past, as would any of you if you happened to apply for your passport or licence, I was quite wary of my approach. But, I was reassured by my colleagues that things have changed quite a bit with government's way of working these days.u00a0
My first call was to the Jharkhand Tourism Department. I was given the director's number readily and even managed to get a telephone appointment with him. Butu00a0 I was told that due to a scam in the department itself, the budget for this year was zero and they were not allowed to talk to the press.
After dealing with a couple of public holidays and the shutting down of the tourism offices in Sikkim, I got through to the Deputy Director. Upon hearing my request, she acted as if I had asked her to part with a carefully guarded family secret. She, however, asked me to put everything in a mail. Sikkim never bothered to reply and permanently let my call ring away and the Arunachal website had all obsolete phone numbers and mail addresses.
After being rejected by every possible state, I decided to approach the Ministry of Tourism. After all, they even have advertisements running on the telly these days for every possible state you can think of. They even have a publicity department. Except the publicity person was never in her seat ever.
After a few days and one e-mail later, since giving out cell numbers are next to sacriligious in government departments, I was still trying to get hold of the publicitist. Finally, when I insisted on speaking to her, I was told that the publicity department didn't handle public relations at all; they only did advertisements.
When I was told to seek an appointment with the Secretary of Tourism and personally meet him in Delhi as the next step, I started identifying with RK Laxman's common man and characters from O Henry short stories ufffd a victim of the system, one whose life might just remain stuck forever in annual reports of the tourism department.
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