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`Good response to TUF scheme'

Our Bureau

NEW DELHI, Dec. 14

THE Union Textile Minister, Mr Kashiram Rana, has said the Technology Upgradation Fund (TUF) scheme launched in 1999 is benefiting a large number of powerlooms in the country.

Responding to a spate of supplementaries during the question hour in the Lok Sabha, Mr Rana said that though the scheme was launched for a five-year period with an initial limit of Rs 25,000 crore, subsequently no limit on its corpus was set. He said tha t as on October 21 the scheme had sanctioned projects worth more than Rs 10,600 crore in investment.

Mr Rana said that though the sanctioned amount under the scheme was Rs 3,000 crore, the actual disbursement till October 21 was around Rs 1,148 crore as more powerlooms had started applying for loans under the scheme.

In reply to another question, the Minister said that cotton growers were now getting more remunerative prices around Rs 300-400 per quintal more than in the past.

Three-pronged tourism policy: The Union Minister of Tourism and Culture, Mr Ananth Kumar, told Mr Shivraj Patil (Congress) that the Government had a three-pronged tourism policy to attract more tourists. A new tourism policy providing for public-private partnership was on the anvil.

On the lines of a national culture fund, a tourism development fund was being worked out. A Pilgrimage Development Board to spruce up pilgrim centres to cater to the multi-religious feature of the Indian community was also under way.

When several members expressed reservations over the continuation of coastal restrictions zones which prevented coastal tourism from being developed, the Minister said the matter was under the consideration of the Supreme Court. He, however, assured the members that inter-ministerial interaction with the Ministry of Environment was being made to see how best the constraints could be eased to promote beach tourism in and around the country's vast 9,000-km coastal belts.

Mr Kumar said the arrivals of foreign tourists had touched 2.48 million and the average stay of foreign tourists was 15 days unlike in other destinations such as Singapore, Hong Kong or European countries where it was a single-day stay.

He said funding for developing tourist infrastructure remained a formidable challenge. As against an estimated requirement of Rs 44,000 crore for developing tourism, the department had to run on a budget of Rs 350-400 crore for building tourism infrastru cture.