Ministry of Tourism (India)

Branch of the Government of India

Ministry of Tourism

Emblem of India
Agency overview
Formed	1967
Jurisdiction	India
Headquarters	Ministry of Tourism Transport Bhawan Sansad Marg New Delhi,110011 New Delhi
Annual budget	₹2,150 crore (US$300 million) (2018–19 est.)[1]
Minister responsible	Alphons Kannanthanam, Minister of State (Independent charge)
Website	tourism.gov.in

The Ministry of Tourism, a branch of the Government of India, is the apex body for formulation and administration of the rules, regulations and laws relating to the development and promotion of tourism in India. The head of the ministry is Minister of Tourism, a Minister of State (Independent Charge), held by Alphons Kannanthanam Since September 2017.^[2] To promote the GDP of the country indirectly and to have friendly relations with them, The Government of India announced officially a Visa on Arrival status/facility for International Visitors to enter/visit India from 43 countries including United States, Australia, Vietnam, Thailand, Vanuatu, Singapore, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Russian Federation, Brazil, Finland, Germany, Japan, Myanmar on 27 November 2014 and some more countries to follow soon.

India stole the limelight at the World Tourism Mart 2011 in London by winning two global awards - World's Leading Destination and World's Leading Tourist Board, Incredible India.^[3]

Contents

• 
  1 History
  


• 
  2 List of Ministers of Tourism
  


• 
  3 Campaigns
  
  
  
  • 
    3.1 Incredible India
    
  
  
  • 
    3.2 Cleanliness Index
    
  
  
  
  


• 
  4 Institutions
  


• 
  5 See also
  


• 
  6 Notes
  


• 
  7 External links
  

History

The potential for tourism in India was first recognized with the setting up of a Tourist Traffic Committee, an ad-hoc body, in 1948, to suggest ways and means to promote tourism in India. Based on its recommendations, a tourist traffic branch was set up the following year, with regional offices in Delhi and Mumbai, and in 1951, in Kolkata and Chennai. A separate department of tourism under the government was first created on 1 March 1958, that was put under the ambit of Ministry of Transport and Communications. It was headed by a Director General in the rank of joint secretary. Simultaneously, Tourism Development Council, an advisory body, was constituted and was chaired by the minister in charge of tourism.^[4]

After a fall in the number of tourists entering India in 1961 from the preceding year, the government constituted a committee headed by Lakshmi Kant Jha, then secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs, under the Ministry of Finance, to find and examine the reasons. The committee attributed it to the Chinese aggression in the backdrop of the Sino-Indian War that year. Subsequently, as per the committee's recommendations, visa norms were liberlized, and the India Tourism Development Corporation was established in 1966 as a functional agency of the Department of Tourism. Further, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi convened a conference in October that year, the deliberations of which resulted in the creation of the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation. Karan Singh was appointed the first minister.^[4]

Despite his skills as an orator and scholarly knowledge in the Sanskrit language, Singh failed to take tourism on a growing path during the initial years, owing mostly to failure in getting funds for the promotion and infrastructure of tourism. He subsequently persuaded Air India to get their officers involved in promotion of tourism to India. Region-wise targets for arrivals were given and Air India chiefs were given powers to oversee the working of overseas tourist offices of India; 'Operation Europe' for the said region was later extended to other areas. Air India's failure to take this forward owing to losses in revenue "collision" of "egos of tourist officers" led to slump in growth of tourism. Prime minister Rajiv Gandhi later took charge of the ministry before quitting in favour of other ministers who, Pran Nath Seth in Successful Tourism wrote, "felt that the tourism portfolio was a demotion", as Civil Aviation was separated from the ministry. During this time, the Tourism was tied with Commerce Ministry, and later under V. P. Singh's ministry, in 1991 with Agriculture,^[5] when it was headed by Chaudhary Devi Lal. It was again tied with Civil Aviation that year, headed by Madhavrao Scindia, before the Deve Gowda government in 1996 attached it with the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs.^[5] Tourism was then combined with culture portfolio when it was headed by Jagmohan. The latter was separated in 2002 and an independent ministry for tourism has been active since.^[4]

List of Ministers of Tourism

No	Name	Portrait	Term of Office		Political party (Alliance)		Prime Minister
1	Karan Singh		13 March 1967	9 November 1973	Indian National Congress		Indira Gandhi
2	Raj Bahadur		9 November 1973	22 December 1976
3	Kotha Raghuramaiah		23 December 1976	24 March 1977
4	Purushottam Kaushik		26 March 1977	15 July 1979	Janata Party		Morarji Desai
5	Mohammad Shafi Qureshi		30 July 1979	14 January 1980	Janata Party (Secular)		Charan Singh
6	Janaki Ballabh Patnaik		14 January 1980	8 June 1980	Indian National Congress		Indira Gandhi
7	Anant Sharma		19 October 1980	2 September 1982
8	Khurshed Alam Khan		2 September 1982	31 December 1984
9	Rajiv Gandhi		31 December 1984	25 September 1985			Rajiv Gandhi
10	H. K. L. Bhagat		25 September 1985	12 May 1986
11	Mufti Mohammad Sayeed		12 May 1986	14 July 1987
12	Mohsina Kidwai		14 February 1988	25 June 1988
13	Arun Nehru		13 December 1989	7 November 1990	Janata Dal (National Front)		V. P. Singh
14	Chaudhary Devi Lal		21 November 1990	26 June 1991	Samajwadi Janata Party (National Front)		Chandra Shekhar
15	Madhavrao Scindia		21 June 1991	10 January 1993	Indian National Congress		P. V. Narasimha Rao
16	Ghulam Nabi Azad		17 January 1993	15 May 1996
17	V. Dhananjay Kumar		16 May 1996	1 June 1996	Bharatiya Janata Party (National Democratic Alliance)		Atal Bihari Vajpayee
18	C. M. Ibrahim		2 June 1996	22 April 1997	Janata Dal (United Front)		H. D. Deve Gowda
19	Srikant Kumar Jena		22 April 1997	19 March 1998			I. K. Gujral
20	Madan Lal Khurana		19 March 1998	29 January 1999	Bharatiya Janata Party (National Democratic Alliance)		Atal Bihari Vajpayee
21	Ananth Kumar		30 January 1999	13 October 1999
22	Uma Bharati		13 October 1999	2 February 2000
(21)	Ananth Kumar		2 February 2000	1 September 2001
23	Jagmohan		1 September 2001	22 May 2004
24	Renuka Chowdhury		23 May 2004	28 January 2006	Indian National Congress (United Progressive Alliance)		Manmohan Singh
25	Ambika Soni		29 January 2006	22 May 2009
26	Selja Kumari		28 May 2009	19 January 2011
27	Subodh Kant Sahay		19 January 2011	28 October 2012
28	Chiranjeevi		28 October 2012	15 May 2014
29	Shripad Naik		26 May 2014	12 November 2014	Bharatiya Janata Party (National Democratic Alliance)		Narendra Modi
30	Mahesh Sharma		12 November 2015	3 September 2017
31	Alphons Kannanthanam		3 September 2017	Incumbent

Campaigns

Incredible India

Main article: Incredible India

The Ministry of Tourism's joint secretary Amitabh Kant collaborated with Ogilvy & Mather to create the Incredible India marketing initiative, aiming to promote India's image as a high-end tourist destination.^[6]

Incredible India 2.0 was launched on September 27, 2017 by President Ram Nath Kovind, on the occasion of World Tourism Day.^[7]

Cleanliness Index

Union Tourism Ministry is planning to introduce "Cleanliness Index" for all cities in India. This index will declare the best performers which will motivate other cities to work on this aspect of their appeal. The methodology has been already formulated and will be implemented in 6 cities on a pilot basis.^[8]

Institutions

A number of educational institutions related to hospitality are governed by Ministry of Tourism. This include the Institutes of Hotel Management, Catering Technology and Applied Nutrition (IHMCTAN). In 2016, a few of the IHMCTANs (Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Jaipur) driven by inputs from Ministry of Tourism, started giving a hotel management student the option to choose only vegetarian cooking. Earlier, it was compulsory for all IHMCTAN students to learn non-vegetarian cooking. This decision to offer a vegetarian option by IHMCTANs could possibly be the first amongst any of the hospitality training institutes of the world.^[9][10]

See also

• India Tourism Development Corporation


• Public sector undertaking


• Visa policy of India

Notes

1. 
   ^ "Budget data" (PDF). www.indiabudget.gov.in. 2019..mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit}.mw-parser-output .citation q{quotes:"""""""'""'"}.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Lock-green.svg/9px-Lock-green.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-gray-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-red-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration{color:#555}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration span{border-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help}.mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg/12px-Wikisource-logo.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output code.cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:inherit;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{display:none;color:#33aa33;margin-left:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration,.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-right{padding-right:0.2em}
   


2. 
   ^ ": Ministries, Government of India Ministry of Culture - Sarkaritel.com".
   


3. 
   ^ "News18.com: CNN-News18 Breaking News India, Latest News Headlines, Live News Updates". News18.
   


4. 
   ^ ^abc Seth, Prem Nath (2006). Successful Tourism: Volume I: Fundamentals of Tourism. Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd. pp. 214–217. ISBN 9788120731998. Retrieved 8 March 2018.
   


5. 
   ^ ^ab Seth, Pran Nath; Bhat, Sushma Seth (2003). An Introduction To Travel And Tourism. Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd. p. 64. ISBN 9788120724822. Retrieved 8 March 2018.
   


6. 
   ^ "Incredible India Campaign". Retrieved 6 January 2018.
   


7. 
   ^ "President launches Incredible India 2.0 Campaign; 'Adopt a Heritage' Project". The Hindu: Business Line. 27 Sep 2017.
   


8. 
   ^ Retrieved from 'The Hindu' on 20 September 2014
   


9. 
   ^ http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31808&articlexml=IHMs-to-offer-3-yr-course-in-vegetarian-11072016013026. Retrieved 30 August 2016. Missing or empty |title= (help)
   


10. 
    ^ http://www.cityofjaipur.com/news/2016/07/13/vegetarian-cooking-courses-to-be-introduced-in-hotel-management-institutes/. Retrieved 30 August 2016. Missing or empty |title= (help)
    

External links

• Official website

v t e Tourism in India
By state	Andhra Pradesh Andaman and Nicobar Islands Assam Bihar Patna Delhi Chhattisgarh Goa Jammu and Kashmir Ladakh Haryana Himachal Pradesh Karnataka Bangalore Mysore Kerala Thiruvanathapuram Kochi Thrissur Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra Mumbai Marathwada Aurangabad Mizoram North East India Odisha Kosal Puducherry Punjab Rajasthan Jaipur Telangana Hyderabad Tamil Nadu Chennai Coimbatore Uttar Pradesh Allahabad Uttarakhand West Bengal Kolkata
Types	Beaches Hill stations Islands Lakes Medical tourism Skiing Tourist trains Waterfalls Wildlife National parks Protected areas World Heritage Sites
Organisations	India TDC Andhra Pradesh TDC Assam TDC Bihar STDC Delhi TTDC Haryana Tourism Corporation J&K TDC Karnataka TDC Kerala TDC Madhya Pradesh TDC Maharashtra TDC Odisha TDC Rajasthan TDC Tamil Nadu TDC Telangana TDC Uttar Pradesh Tourism West Bengal TDCL
See also	Incredible India NEITM Visa policy of India
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