National Conference on Sunday asked Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and her government to “look beyond elitism and collusion with crony capitalists and her family friends in the name of tourism promotion in the State.”
In a statement, NC state spokesperson Junaid Azim Mattu said “recurring splurges by the Chief Minister and her Government including private guest galas and private tours in times of a severe, unprecedented Tourism distress in the State was unbecoming, utterly insensitive and shameful especially in light of a complete lack of vision to resuscitate the Tourism Sector.”
“Having dinners in five star hotels with her family friends and business associates of her crony cartel should not be passed off as Tourism promotion. Between the Chief Minister and her brother now, the Tourism sector remains vision-less and directionless. The PDP-BJP Government has failed to create any new infrastructure in the sector and remains invested in being directed and guided by a few rich, influential and powerful businessmen who decide on everything ranging from high-level transfers, to allocations, permissions and these unproductive, wasteful tours in the name of tourism promotion”, Mattu said.
“Successive NC-led Governments in the State had focused on asset and infrastructure creation in the Tourism sector – both in the public and the private domains and had worked with local stakeholders to create a bottom-up capacity augmentation that eventually resulted in record tourist inflows,” he said.