Businessmen to be roped in to develop tourism in DK

MANGALURU: In order to pool resources for the development of tourism and supporting infrastructure from businessmen, the district administration has mooted the idea of ‘Namma Mangaluru Namma Koduge’ (Our Mangaluru our contribution).
Explaining the concept, district minister UT Khader told reporters on Friday on the sidelines of Mangaluru River Festival that established entrepreneurs from Mangaluru will be asked to pool in resources to develop the city and tourism here as part of their corporate social responsibility. He said a meeting of all businessmen and business establishments in the city will be called, probably next week, during which the idea will be put across to them.

“It is their responsibility that they (entrepreneurs) contribute towards development. A few have already been working in this regard, but the contributions are coming in bits and pieces. All ideas and initiatives need to be streamlined for a holistic development,” said Khader. He said the government will also study the Goa and Kerala models of tourism and try to replicate the same in this part of the state.

Speaking about the river festival, he said organisations and institutions needed to take a cue from the events lined up during the two days and replicate the same at the local level, so the true potential of scenic places across Dakshina Kannada district is harnessed. He said scenic places with huge potential for tourism existed in several pockets of Dakshina Kannada district, and that these needed to be promoted. Khader assured he would do his best to provide financial support from the government to startups that work towards promoting tourism.

In order to bring out a clear-cut policy and guidelines, Khader said he has urged the deputy commissioner to work out a strategy. On the occasion, the minister assured to propose more funds for promoting tourism during the upcoming budget session.