Indian tourism expands

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32588, 23 April 1971, Page 10

Indian tourism expands

Tales of poverty should not deter any intending tourist from visiting India, which could boast at having hotels that were more than equal to the best international standards.

Mr M. S. Sethi, the director of the Government of India tourist office in Sydney, said this in Christchurch yesterday.

In New Zealand on one of his twice-yearly promotional visits, Mr Sethi said tourism was of one the six largest foreign-exchange earners in India. What was not generally known overseas was that accommodation in India was the cheapest in the world, he said. There were rates to attract visitors from all economic levels. Two major resorts were now being developed—a ski resort in the mountains of Kashmir at Gullarg, and 1500 miles south, a tropical ocean resort at Koualam, in Kerala. Mr Sethi described the rate of tourist growth from New Zealand to India as very satisfactory. Praising the assistance of New Zealand in the development of India’s dairy industry, Mr Sethi said the next step would be an exchange of specialists between the two countries.

Under the latest, and fourth five-year plan, the Indian Government had placed maximum emphasis on agriculture and agriculturallyoriented industries, as India’s population remained pre-

dominantly a rural one, he said.

The time was ripe for an exchange of agricultural experts between the two countries. With the gradual improvement of India’s agriculture it would not be long before large numbers of Indians invaded New Zealand on fact-finding study tours, Mr Sethi predicted. INDIAN DOCTORS He was surprised at New Zealand’s reluctance to take more Indian doctors in spite

of its doctor shortage, he said. In the last 25 years India had made a tremendous advance in medical education and now possessed medical institutions which were on a par with the best in the world.

A large number of Indian doctors had succumbed to the brain drain and gone overseas, he said. About 35 per cent of doctors in Britain’s National Health Scheme were Indians.

He suggested an exchange of specialists so that confidence could, be better established.

Mr Sethi’s wife is a doctor and practices in Sydney. This evening, Mr Sethi will address local travel agents at a meeting sponsored by the New Zealand-India Society.