Efforts are on to ensure local participation in the Malanad-Malabar river cruise project that is expected to give a new impetus to tourism development in the North Malabar region.
The project being inaugurated by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan at Parassinikkadavu here on June 30 is envisaged to have tourism-related development potential in different parts of the district as it covers six rivers in Kannur and two in Kasaragod.
Local-level seminars under the aegis of the Tourism Department and Responsible Tourism Mission will be held in different areas to discuss the tourism development opportunities that the river cruise project is expected to provide. The first such seminar was held at Madayi here in the Kalliassery Assembly constituency on June 22.
Local participation
Underlining the importance of making all preparations to ensure local participation in the cruise project and to make local people its beneficiaries, local MLA T.V. Rajesh, while addressing the seminar, called for exploring the project’s potential to create new jobs and to revive crafts and arts that are now facing extinction.
Such seminars will be conducted in different parts of the Taliparamba Assembly constituency in the coming days.
Local level people’s representatives, officials of co-operative banks, Kudumbasree workers and people from socio-cultural fields will be the participants in the seminar. Tourism Department officials and experts from the State Responsible Tourism Mission will conduct classes.
A press release here said that representatives of men’s self-help groups, entrepreneurs, artisans, farmers, co-operative societies, operators of taxi, autorickshaw and tourist bus services, representatives of non-resident Indians, banks, hotel/restaurant owners, fishermen and those starting new ventures could attend the seminars. After the seminars, separate training programmes would be conducted for people in each sector related to responsible tourism prior to the launch of the cruise tourism project, the release said, adding that panchayat-level tourism maps would be prepared subsequently, citing important places, incidents, traditional jobs, agricultural fields and places of worship.
