Attention Please: Save the pink city

Govinda Neupane



Recently, I had been to Jaipur. The city is really beautiful. It is a good destination for all tourists. But, the heritage sites are at the verge of collapse. Nearly all monuments including the beautiful Hawa Mahal and the wonderful Jal Mahal are counting their last days. The city roads are in extremely poor condition. So are the gardens. The intermediaries are busy destroying the entire tourist industry. Particularly, the auto drivers and rickshaw pullers create bitterness among tourists. If you want to go somewhere, they try hard to force you to go to another place, where they get commission for any purchases made or for the stay in the hotel. Not these poor chaps, but the hoteliers and the shopkeepers should be blamed as they create such situation by giving commission to these fellows. If the same trend that includes disappearance of heritage sites, intermediaries’ sadist behaviors and ill state of infrastructure continues, Jaypur may not last that long as a major tourist destination.



There are good sides too. The Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation (RTDC) operates buses to and from major cities such as

Delhi and

Agra. These buses are extremely reliable and comfortable. The RTDC-run hotels are comfortable in terms of facilities. Basically, the human factor is also fine, but as they are in the hospitality business, the staff members should develop hospitable attitude even more. One good sign was that the historic Amber fort and palace are being renovated. The same is needed for many other sites. The city authorities together with the state and central agencies should give priority on maintaining the heritage sites well, improving the infrastructure particularly the roads and gardens, developing more hospitable culture among the people in hospitality business and chasing away the sadist intermediaries by bringing ethics and enforcing code of conduct among the hoteliers and shopkeepers.

February 01, 2007