Making Incredible India credible

The National Tourism Awards were given on February 18 at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi. Shashi

Tharoor, Minister of State for Human Resource Development, was the chief guest at the function and gave away the awards to the winners.

Tharoor shared the dais with dignitaries, including Parvez Dewan, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism; Girish Shankar, Additional Secretary, MOT; Usha Sharma, Additional Director-General, MOT; Anand Kumar, Joint Secretary, MOT and AK Gupta, Additional Director-General (MR), MOT. Representatives of the states and other travel and tourism organisations were present to receive the awards.

In his welcome address Dewan thanked the attendees and congratulated the winners. Regaling the audience with his speech, Tharoor stressed on making Incredible India a credible place for tourists to visit. He commended the government’s efforts for undertaking various initiatives like the collective landing permit, 90day free entry for Maldivians visiting India for medical tourism and the Visa on Arrival facilities for 180 countries. He also highlighted the fact that the tourism industry is one of the most rapid employment generation sectors. The event concluded with Shankar’s vote of thanks.