Lokmat News Network
Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:
An active organisation Aurangabad Tourism Development Foundation (ATDF) has urged the union Ministry of Tourism (MoT) to initiate action in overcoming the shortage of tourist guides in the district, which is the Tourism capital of Maharashtra.
ATDF’s Chairman (Public Relations Committee) Sunit Kothari underlined that there is an urgent need of conducting a regional or state-level Guide Training Programme. Presently, the training is held in IITTM Gawalior, but it is not affordable for many aspirants in many ways including the long duration of the course. The present Tourist Facilitator Programme does not permit guiding at the ASI monuments. Only after completing the advanced training do candidates become eligible to guide at all monuments. This limitation further exacerbates the guide shortage issue.
ATDF strongly recommend outsourcing the training programme for Maharashtra to MGM University (Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar), which offers 11 foreign language courses. It would help resolve guide shortages and also create valuable employment opportunities for people in the state. The lack of trained guides poses a serious threat to the district’s tourism sector, he stressed.