Provide highway connectivity btw tourist spots: Patil

Bangalore, Mar 17: Leader of the Opposition in the Karnataka Legislative Council H K Patil today (Mar 17, 2006) urged the government to provide highway connectivity between tourist spots and make it compulsory for students to visit places of historic and cultural importance.

Taking part in a discussion on President A P J Abdul Kalam's address to the joint session of the Legislature on November 20 last year, he lamented that tourist inflow into world famous historical spots like Hampi, Badami, Pattadakal and Bijapur was less due to lack of road connectivity.

Expressing displeasure over schools taking its students on tour to only hill stations and amusement parks, he urged the government to make it compulsory for students to visit places of historic and cultural relevance.

'Mukhya' Mantri Chandru (BJP) suggested that district level studies could be taken up for revival of the tourism industry.

Calling for a rise in the budgetary allocation for the tourism sector, Mr Arvind Limbavali (BJP) pointed out that while a smaller state like Kerala set aside over Rs 100 crore in its Budget for boosting tourism, Karnataka allocated less than Rs 10 crore.

UNI