The State level Maharashtra Agri Tourism Development Committee on Wednesday January 12 held a virtual meeting to discuss on the Agro tourism policy. The meeting was chaired by Valsa Nair Singh, Principal Secretary, Tourism in presence of other top cadre officers from the department.
In the meeting it was decided to make some amendments by adding important pointers to the Agri tourism policy drafted by Maharashtra Tourism department. The new amendments are, if an agricultural land given on lease for a minimum period of 10 years, the lessee can apply to run an agro tourism centre on that land with the NOC of the lessor. Similarly, if an Agri tourism centre has an accommodation of more than eight rooms, they will be allowed with constructed area restriction as per the town planning norms for agricultural zone. Besides this, the other amendments are each registered entity must install DoT authorised centre boards with the logo of Maharashtra Tourism in the Agri tourism centre. They will participate in agro exhibitions to promote the Agri tourism schemes. Also, they will be allowed to participate as co-exhibitors with DoT at various travel marts like SATHE, OTM, OTTM and others. The Agri tourism centres outside the boundary of Municipal Corporation, Urban Council, Urban Panchayat etc. will be allowed in principal with certain conditions. The Agro tourism centres can sell locally produced goods- food, handicrafts etc. at the centre.
It was also decided that the model syllabus for Agri tourism training to be designed by a committee comprising Agricultural University professors, District Agricultural Officers, Institute of Hotel Management (IHM) members, Expert Agri tourism centre owners and Tourism department officials.
Dr. Dhananjay Sawalkar, Joint Director, DoT informed, "A review meeting was conducted in which the Regional officers were asked to complete the site visits and registration procedure of agri tourism centres. Due to this, over 500 applications were received from all the six regions."
The top three regions in terms of applications received are Pune, Konkan and Nagpur. Pune received the highest number of applications i.e. 215, out of which 125 centres are registered. Konkan and Nagpur received 114 and 66 applications out of which 65 and 35 centres are registered respectively.
“The department is presently focussing on the other three regions viz. Nashik, Amravati and Aurangabad so that more farmers apply for agri tourism centres and register with us," he added.
The above mentioned amendments will soon be made in the Agri tourism policy and the updated policy will be uploaded on Maharashtra tourism’s website, their office informed.
