Sunil Sharma
20% of royalty of 37 sites that will be transferred by forest department to forest corporation, will go to the state government’s account. Action on eco-tourism projects was initiated seven months ago with this particular amendment in eco-tourism policy. Earlier, the previous government had directed forest department to transfer 37 projects out of 97 selected projects to forest corporation. But now the decision has been taken that transfer of eco-tourism projects to forest corporation will take place on departmental mode.
The eco-tourism policy was amended for second time by Virbhadra cabinet about one year ago, as the previous policy was not investor friendly. According to amended policy, forest department will have to take all types of no objection certificates (NOC) from forest ministry. In fact even the provision of net present value (NPV) will also be done by committee constituted for eco-tourism. Final approval of the project will be done by infrastructure development board.
All the projects will be given for 10 years term and the work related to project will be done on public private partnership (PPP) mode. 20% share of the earnings generated from these projects will go to state government, 20% to eco-tourism society and 60% share will go to eco-tourism committee constituted at division level. However there could be a change in these standards after addition of forest corporation in it. Serious efforts will be put in to generate employment from eco-tourism. Tenders will be invited before allocation of project and eco-restoration charge will be taken from investors. Besides this approval of RFP document from infrastructure development board will be necessary. However even after such a big exercise, there is no action from bureaucracy.