Srinagar, July 9: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today chaired the board meetings of Sher-e-Kashmir International Convention Center (SKICC) and Jammu and Kashmir Tourism Development Corporation (JKTDC), when the boards were recently restructured with the Chief Minister as the chairman of both boards.
The CM presided over the back-to-back board meetings here at Skicc Srinagar. He chaired the 19th board meeting of SKICC, in which Chief Minister Nasir Aslam Wani, Chief Secretary Atal Dullu, Administrative Secretary of Finance, Tourism, DG Yojana, Director Tourism, MD JKTDC and Director SKCC participated.
The Chief Minister emphasized the need to emerge as a prominent place for the conferences and other events to use the SKICC at its optimal level and is able to earn enough revenue to bear its expenses. He called for SKICC management to employ strategic marketing equipment to familiarize corporates and private organizations about this feature, which has the ability to be the center of activities throughout the year. The CM concerned SKICC under-exemption and asked the tourism department to make a separate rat brand identity for SKICC to use this facility. The CM said during the meeting, “It is necessary to target corporates, events and government agencies for SKICC to ensure high booking and reduce uncontrolled days. This will help SKICC to increase its revenue”, CM said during the meeting. The CM also called for recovering the outstanding arrears with departments, private institutions and individuals. CM also asked employees to do clear roles and better supervision to get the best from the available human resource.
This was the first board meeting of the SKICC after being reorganized with the Chief Minister as the chairman of the board of the board. The final board meeting of the Skicc Board was held in November 2020.
The agenda took action on the decision of the previous board meetings, audit reports, cohesion of accounts along with AG office, Skicc and Centaur Hotel, which was outsourced by the UT administration for Leela Palace and JSW Realty last year, which were absorbed by Santor Hotel Employees in other organizations of the tourism department.
In another meeting, the Chief Minister chaired the meeting of the 95th Board of Directors of J&K Tourism Development Corporation and emphasized the need to increase the visibility of JKTDC assets so that tourists and people can normally seek housing in JKTDC Hotel and Guest House. He called for improving services and facilities in JKTDC properties to increase the experience of guests so that they prefer to take JKTDC housing, each time they visit J&K.
CM expressed concern over the misuse of JKTDC properties and revenue leakage. “Each JKTDC asset is installed with an independent smart meter,” the CM emphasized, JKTDC underlined the need to improve monitoring of huts and hotels and investigate the misuse of assets. He called upon to improve the overnight position of huts in remote tourist areas. The CM gave directions to create maximum rooms including premiums available for better marketing capacity through online travel aggregators so that JKTDC hotels and huts are used for optimal capacity. He called upon to develop the JKTDC app for efficient marketing and better access to his services.
The CM called for an audit of assets to evaluate lacquer and improve shortcomings. JKTDC management was directed to follow the best practices in the private sector to improve their functioning.
The JKTDC Board meeting discussed on the various agenda points, onboarding online travel aggregators for marketing and sale of hotel rooms and houses, reimbursement of outstanding dues from other departments, amendment and action of the JKTDC housing allotted for various departments and organizations, financial statements, UNPAIDs.
JKTDC Board meeting was also attended by Chief Minister Nasir Aslam Wani, Chief Secretary Atal Dullu, Chief Minister Dhirj Gupta, Additional Chief Second, Finance, Tourism, Industries, DG Yojana, Director of Tourism and Advisor to Administrative Secretary of Managing Director JKTDC.