Visitors and pilgrims planning to come for the Maha Kumbh in Allahabad in 2013 will be in for some pleasant surprises.
The department of tourism in Uttar Pradesh will be deploying 2,000 tourist guides and an equal number of tourist facilitators during the Mela period. The tourist facilitators will help the district administration in guiding tourists and also in crowd management.
The Manyawar Kanshi Ram Institute of Tourism Management (MKITM) is currently training a set of persons for the job.
According to the director of the Institute, Prof. Manoj Dixit said the persons are being trained under the Centrally-assisted programmed called “Hunar se Rozgar” and is basically a skill development exercise.
He added that programme was looking at persons with limited means of learning who need to acquire skills for employment. Youth between 18 and 28 years are being included and trainees with 90 per cent or more attendance will be given stipend and a certificate after the completion of the training.
The institute will also make an attempt to inculcate knowledge among the trainees that will enable them to act and work as student volunteers. “It is expected that about seven crore pilgrims will attend the Maha Kumbh and for this, we need at least 2,000 guides. At present, we only have around 850 guides. This is a major challenge before us and therefore we aim at training people to act as guides,” said Prof. Dixit.
It may be noted that the tourism department has also started a global helpline duly managed by a professional call centre.