Andaman gears up for the safety of visiting tourists

Port Blair, Nov 07 (UNI) The Andaman and Nicobar administration has pulled up its socks to provide safety measures for the tourists following the death of a high profile tourist here recently.

The Administration in a series of meetings with village level committees and other organisations had decided to carry out safety measures for the tourists, official sources said.

Dhanbad's Mine Safety Director General Bhaskar Battacharya and his 21 year-old son Siddharth's death, while on a trip to Radhanagar Beach, on October 27 had sent shock waves across the island.

Accordind to the sources both the father and son were drowned due to lack of life saving equipments in the boat.

Earlier, the territory's tourism department was in soup for the for the plight of tourists, who were left without accommodation, food and transport, during September and October.

'' We are taking all kind of precautions for the safety of the tourists,'' South Andaman Deputy Commissioner K K Singh told newmen in Port Blair yesterday.

North Andaman Deputy Commissioner Vivek Pandy in a meeting yesterday had constituted a committee to give promote safe and effective eco-tourism in several villages of Middle Andaman.

Some rules like keeping life safety equipments in boats, not to carry plastic bags to tourist places, provisions of eco-friendly dustbins, regular boats timings, were recommended in the committee to ensure safe and environment friendly tourism, Mr Pandy said.

The Andaman Police is also on alert, Mr Pandy said.

''In recent days we have registered many complaints from tourists and taken suitable actions,'' he added.

Lifeguards have been placed in a few important places and efforts are on to creating more infrastructure for tourists.

At present hotels and flights have been already booked for the next two months, sources said.

In the early nineties, the islands used to get around 10,000 to 12,000 tourists in a year. By 2000 tourist traffic increased about ten times.

After tsumani there was a drastic drop in the number of tourists, however, since September the traffic has again gained the pace.

''We expect it to the peak during Christmas. Even the number of foreign tourists is rising sharply,'' territory tourism departments PRO Rana Mathew said.

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