As Ladakh nears its fourth anniversary as a full-fledged union territory later this year, the region, once a victim of discrimination, has progress a lot on multiple front, in a successful testimony of the union government’s decision to reorganise the cold desert into a separate administrative unit.
Ladakh has remained one of the most fascinating tourist destinations across the globe, pulling visitors from all over the country and the world, alike. And for as much time, while the doors to Ladakh have been open, the road to become a truly global tourism destination is not without barriers, of one or the other kind, which have kept the Ladakh economy from realising its full potential.
With the region getting a full-fledged UT status, it is in a much stronger position today to deal with the sea of opportunities in terms of expansion of tourism and allied sectors, for prosperity, that stand Infront of it, today.
The first five and a half months of this year have seen a strong emphasis being put by the union territory administration in terms of bettering the facilities provided to the tourists and visitors, who while enthralled by the pull of Ladakh, have been keeping away from the beautiful region, mainly due to the concerns over their safety in view of the prolonged protests and tensions in the region due to the demand of one section for Ladakh’s inclusion into the sixth schedule of the constitution of India among others. The Government of India has made unprecedented efforts to build border infrastructure. It has also announced plans to open villages along the northern border for tourists under the Vibrant Villages Programme.
The administration has recently done away with the Inner Line Permit (ILP) for domestic tourists visiting all notified protected areas of the region which will further help in increasing tourism. As the Administration works on the draft tourism policy for Ladakh- a strategically important region- it will do good to pay great attention to how it would want the Tourism Sector to expand to the border areas.
The government in this year’s budget session had announced setting up of a solar park in Ladakh, with investment of Rs 20,700 crore, including central support of Rs 8,300 crore. The government has sanctioned a number of road projects in Ladakh, while now the farthest corners of Ladakh have access to telecommunication networks, enabling the residents in remotest of villages to access various digital services.
The remotest of the villages in Ladakh are now provided with grid connectivity, with solar street lights bringing cheers to hundreds of residents. Clean water has long been a valued and scarce resource in the mountain desert of Ladakh and the UT administration has made gigantic efforts to ensure that Ladakhis get clean and pure water, with more than two-third of the UT now covered with Functional Household Tap Connections (FHTC). There has been a remarkable improvement in a number of other parameters including the electricity consumer base, number of Mobile towers and subscribers, besides the VSaT concentration and FHTC major among others. All round efforts are being made to strengthen Ladakh, and the need is now to keep the momentum going.
