The Hindu : Kerala News : Tourism Bill passed

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 04, 2005

Kerala

Kerala

Tourism Bill passed

By Our Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, MARCH 3. The Assembly today passed the Kerala Tourism (Conservation and Preservation of Areas) Bill that arms the Government to declare places with tourism potential as special tourism zones.

The Government can declare any place as tourism special zone through a Gazette notification for conservation, preservation and planned development. According to the Bill, a committee would be formed with the Tourism Secretary as chairman and the Tourism Director as convener to identify the special zones. The Director of Archaeology Department, the Chief Town Planner and an environmental and tourism expert too would be members of the committee.

The Assembly accepted the official amendment that the committee can call anyone for the meeting, including the panchayat president.

The committee has the powers to enter any land that has tourism potential or can be developed as a tourism destination in due course. It can deploy an officer to carry out the work for developing it as a tourism zone. But the committee should serve five days notice to the landowner before starting any such work.

No one can enter a place without serving the notice.

The members of the Opposition complained that people's representatives had not been included in the committee. It should not be a panel of bureaucrats alone, they said.

More Assembly reports

on Page 5

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Kerala

News Update

Stories in this Section