KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
Hitting out at Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief, G A Mir for his “vacuous” comments on recently constituted Tourism Advisory Board, PDP Youth Wing President, Waheed-ur-Rehman Para Tuesday said Mir is “responsible for having destroyed J&K’s tourism sector” as a Minister in-charge between 2011 and 2014.
“Mir, in his capacity as Tourism Minister in the previous regime, not only created liabilities worth Crores of rupees in the tourism sector by allotting works to his favourites without following any codal formalities but also duped hundreds of educated unemployed youth by deploying them as casual labourers in the Department in the name of giving them employment,” Para said in a statement.
Para said there was “virtual anarchy” in the Tourism Department during Mir’s tenure as its Minister with “politico-contractor mafia” ruling the roost. “Hundreds of illegal building permissions were granted at the tourist resorts of Pahalgam, Sonamarg and Gulmarg during that period against monetary considerations turning these destinations into concrete jungles,” he said and added that Crores of rupees were spent on the “foreign sojourns of the Tourism Minister and his accomplices during that period without any fruitful gains for the tourism sector in the State”.
“Before pointing his finger at the landmark initiatives being taken by the Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed for the revival of crucial tourism sector in the State, Mir should have looked into his own blemished track record of presiding over the darkest era of tourism sector in the State,” he added.
