Shillong, Oct 12: Ending years of friction in the tourism transport sector, the state government on Monday decided to set up a modern transit hub at Umtyngar and to create a joint stakeholder committee to ensure local tourist taxis get more business from hotels and homestays.
After chairing a meeting with all tourism stakeholders, Deputy Chief Minister in-charge Transport Sniawbhalang Dhar said the Transport Department will develop the Umtyngar site as a model facility.
The meeting was attended by tourist taxi associations, hotel industry and homestay associations, tour guides, and senior officials of the Tourism Department, Deputy Commissioner and Superintendent of Police, East Khasi Hills.
“Today we had a very important, fruitful and positive meeting. We discussed this tourist issue which has been there for the last few years,” Dhar said.
“We received a request from the tourist taxi association, so we have decided we will put a very good parking lot with full civic amenities somewhere around the Umtyngar area along with a food court, cafe, toilet. It will become just like a tourist spot in the form of dropping and picking up points. We have given the okay,” he said.
Dhar said the government will first implement the Umtyngar project before expanding to other locations.
The land, he said, has been proposed by the community free of cost and will be developed by the Transport Department.
In another major decision, Dhar said he urged hotels and homestays to prioritize local taxis.
“They have formed a committee — the first committee with the tourist association from the hotel industries, homestay and the tour guides. They will work out in such a manner that maximum capacity and maximum possibility even from the hotels they will use our local taxis,” he said.
Maintaining that tourism is rebounding, Dhar said, “For the last few days it had become a bit low but now it has started picking up like before, especially with today’s meeting it will boost again.”
“We have come up with so many schemes in the tourism sector, that obviously it will boost but it won’t happen overnight,” he added, noting that stakeholders appreciated the first-of-its-kind joint dialogue.
On safety measures, Dhar said police will provide 24×7 monitoring on the Sohra tourist circuit and CCTV cameras will be installed at key locations, including homestays.
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