In conversation with Diya Kumari, deputy chief minister, and minister in charge for tourism, among four portfolios, Rajasthan Government.
Navin Berry: Thank you Diyaji for being with us this evening. From all of us here in the audience, heartiest congratulations to you on becoming Deputy Chief Minister handling four very critical portfolios in the state government including PWD, finance, tourism. So these are very critical areas for tourism as well. So my first question to you would be, how are you seeing tourism and promotion of tourism as linked to keeping the heritage and culture of Rajasthan alive?
Diya Kumari ji: One has been involved and is still involved in tourism, I am a stakeholder as well. But today handling tourism from the government of Rajasthan, I would say there is a lot to be done. Though Rajasthan doesn’t need any introduction where tourism is concerned, we’ve got everything going for us. We’ve got the most beautiful destinations, palaces, monuments, wildlife, spiritual tourism, going into rural tourism, adventure tourism, we’ve got it all. I feel we need to do is promote it better, market ourselves more because today we are in the day and age of social media, day and age of influencers, day and age of people where everything is on your phone. So we are developing a lot of tools now. You know, what we are going to be focusing on now incorporating technology in our tourism, the way we approach the tourist, we need them to know what we have on offer because we have a lot. The usual places are very well known. We need to develop new destinations, new places to go to, to get to the new places. Shruti Poddar, for instance, she’s very much pushing Shekhawati and we’ve taken it on in the budget also this time. So, when I talk about new destinations, I talk about places where which are easily approachable. There is a road to that place. If there is no road, we make the road. New airports are coming up now in Rajasthan since we have the central government which is also in sync with the Rajasthan government.
So of course, improving infrastructure, connectivity, good place to stay; a safe place to stay. Safety is a very big concern with travelers. Rajasthan has everything. We just need to talk more about it. That is what we are going to be focusing on. The government is going to be focusing on.
Navin Berry: Since you use the word technology and use of technology, allow me to use an expression from technology space, a very basic one. You have got everything going, the best of wildlife, just about everything that you need. I think perhaps you need to press the refresh button. So that refresh button to all your existing products, some plan going ahead on how you want to position them and how you want to take them forward?
Diya Kumari ji: Like you mentioned Pushkar, we are in the process of refreshing that. We are going to be making that into a corridor. Right now what has happened is because people thought, oh, it’s always there, we don’t need to do anything about it. And slowly, slowly, lot of people stopped going to Pushkar for some reason or the other. So, now there is a budget allocated already, we are working on a, like a DPR to make Pushkar, the old Pushkar, how it was originally. Seriously working on that. Also working on the walled city of Jaipur, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I am working very passionately on that. I live there and I feel strongly about it and I think Jaipur city, if that is done up beautifully and you know to what it was originally, 300 years are going to be completed in 2027. So we are really focusing on that.
Shekhawati like I said has the most beautiful havelis, working on making the laws, where you can’t break these Havelis. What people have done is that they have broken down these old Havelis and made malls out of those and those are terrible. Many of our temples like Khatushamji, Srinathji, all these temples which are beautiful, lot of people go there. So, making that, clean, tourist friendly, safe, building roads, like I said I’ll have to keep coming back there because tourism is not just about the tourist, it is about infrastructure also, it is about connectivity also, it is about safety also, it is about cleanliness also.
So, it is not just the tourism minister, it involves the UDH minister, the home department, it involves lots of different departments and if everything is in sync, works well together, then it’s a win-win. So we are working on all those lines, developing new destinations as well as revamping the older ones which were very popular, somehow or the other are not so popular anymore.
You talked about the fairs, we have the Teej festival, we have Gangaur, we have Nagaur, we have so many of these you know festivals which happen in Rajasthan. We don’t get as many visitors as we originally used to get. We probably got many many more ten years ago. So, we are also looking at promoting it better and making it grander. You know what can we do to make it even more beautiful, even more spectacular. Again, it’s all about talking about it, getting people to talk about it, the right people to talk about it. Also, I remain so grateful, that our Honorable Prime Minister got the President of France; he also got the Vice President of the US recently. So, all these visits, these VVIP visits, really add to the promotional part of our tourism.
Navin Berry: I’m tempted to ask you, would you be at any time open to making some of these festivals run by private sector? Say, for instance, you have a Jaipur Literary Festival in Jaipur, which is privately driven. It’s become now probably a touchstone of literary festivals in the country. So when you have these Pushkar or Gangaur and so many festivals, is there some PPP mode that you can think of?
Diya Kumari ji: They are already on PPP. Gangaur and Teej is done by the Maharaja of Jodhpur does it in Jodhpur, we do it in Jaipur and Udaipur does it in Udaipur. The Teej Mataji comes out from the palace. And of course, the government supports it, makes the whole thing look great and grand, so it’s a PPP thing, so are a lot of the other festivals. So we are totally open to that. There is no going back, the government of Rajasthan is also going to be opening up their doors.
You will soon hear a lot of things that are going to be happening on PPP mode, in joint ventures. We are totally up for it, we are doing it. So, I would like to invite all of you to come to Rajasthan and have a new look, new perspective, see what all there is, lot of things are happening, going to be happening also. We had just announced the new tourism policy. And the new tourism policy will also be coming up soon in the next few months and the film policy also going to be announced very soon.
Navin Berry: So much so ma’am, congratulations on doing that policy so well. I am getting feelers, some neighboring states are trying to borrow your policies and want to emulate some of the best practices that you have put in your policy. But coming to infrastructure which you mentioned, last mile connectivity is what often misses or skips the radar. So, we have this new expressway to Jaipur. Now once you have come off the expressway and now you’re getting into Jaipur town, that alone could take you 60-75 minutes.
Diya Kumari ji: There is already work going on that and there are lot of bypasses that are in the offing, some are already being built, also connecting it with the Jaipur Ring Road, we are going to be connecting it. If you want to go that side of town or to Ajmer side, you can go through that Ring Road. You don’t have to go via Jaipur town. But you are right, the entry into Jaipur is something we are looking at and at least, making it a little less congested. Traffic is something, like I said, tourism is not just about the tourism ministry, it involves many other ministries. So, it’s a kind of like an overall. We are trying to see what we can do, get the entries into Jaipur to be nice and beautiful and all of that. We are looking at that and less traffic.
Navin Berry: One question which puzzles me or troubles me, we talk about branding. There’s brand Rajasthan and you have multiple brands within Rajasthan which are vying with each other equally popular and famous for their own brand values there is Jodhpur, there is Jaipur, there is Udaipur, there is also Alwar also has a brand of its own there is Boondi. How do you bring them all together in a way that they enhance the bigger brand of Rajasthan?
Diya Kumari ji: I think that’s wonderful because we have all, you have to have more than one. And basically, see these are all places which people come to, which people know of, and which of course a lot of the private stakeholders have also promoted. They have the most amazing properties in these places. A lot of them have turned them into hotels or museums. They have a brand of their own. But brand Rajasthan, I think it’s the overall, all of these come into Rajasthan. They are a part of Rajasthan. So it is Rajasthan which actually is home to all these amazing other places, all these destinations that you spoke about, which are already successful on their own and are brands of their own. What was earlier, it was Rajputana, so you had all the different erstwhile royal families, so now everything is amalgamated into the Government of India and now of course Government of Rajasthan is there. I think it’s amazing, it’s good. So we are very diverse in a way. Our state is very diverse. If you see Bikaner has its own dialect, Udaipur, when you talk also Rajasthani, Rajasthani, Dhondhar is where Jaipur is, so you have Dhondhari, you have Jodhpur has Madhwari, Udaipur has Mewari. So even our dialect is different when we talk. So that’s also something which is unique to Rajasthan. That’s how our culture is. Even the clothes are little bit different, food also has a little different. That’s how Rajasthan is and that’s what makes it special.
Navin Berry: Anything else you may like to add from your side? We’ve got some captains of industry sitting here. Any message from you as you were mentioning to me earlier, you are very keen for some kind of meeting.
Diya Kumari ji: Yes, yes. So maybe somebody would like to give me suggestions or feedback because you know it’s not about me, you people know way more about tourism than probably I do. So I would like suggestions which the government should incorporate. Thankfully our chief minister also has been, before the budget session we have lot of very, intense sessions with stakeholders of all the departments, for all the ministries before we actually make our budget. So we did that last time also, both times and so whatever feedback came and even when we were drafting the policy, we spoke to all the stakeholders, took suggestions, feedback and then we drafted it.
Today I think it’s a very informal gathering, so I would be very happy if anyone would like to give me any suggestions.
