Uttrakhand to host South Asian Winter Games

New Delhi, Sep 5 (UNI) The Uttrakand government has decided to host the South Asian Winter Games in February next year in which eight countries will be participating.

Stating this during interaction with the Union Ministry of Tourism here, Uttrakhand's Tourism Secretary sought Central funding to upgrade their existing facilities for hosting the event, the Tourism Ministry said in a statement here today.

The state government official invited various states to participate in Winter Games like ice skating and skiing.

He said Uttrakhand will organise an adventure tourism meet in December, adding adventure tour operators and other state governments are being invited to promote adventure tourism in the hill state.

Rpresentatives of Adventure Tour Operators Association of India, who attended the meeting, expressed interest in working closely with Sikkim government for making the Adventure Tourism Centre at Chemchey a successful venture, adding the model could be replicated elsewhere.

The meeting underlined the need for chalking out safety guidelines for sports like hot air ballooning and mountain biking as also for inland maritime and river rafting safety guidelines.

The meeting asked human resource development division of Tourism ministry to make adventure tourism a part of training programmes and hire services of ex-servicemen for developing skilled manpower.

It also decided that state governments along with Adventure Tourism Operators Association formulate a module for capacity building in adventure tourism sector.

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