Mumbai, Jul 18 (IANS): Maharashtra Tourism Minister Girish Mahajan on Thursday said that the implementation of the new tourism policy, which was recently cleared by the state Cabinet, will generate 18 lakh jobs, increase investment and tourist flow into the state.

“The policy’s main objective is to double the flow of travelers by development of tourist places and infrastructure in 10 years and to provide direct and indirect jobs in rural and urban areas,” he added.

Mahajan’s announcement came days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the launch of various projects worth Rs 29,000 crore on Saturday, announced that he would like Maharashtra to become a leading state in the tourism sector.

“Small, medium, large, mega, ultra mega projects have been divided into groups A, B, C categories and they will be encouraged on the basis of investment and employment generation.

“The policy includes concessions in various taxes including interest refund, State GST (SGST) refund, electricity charges to tourism entities.

“The government hopes that the new tourism policy will help make Maharashtra among the leading states in the tourism sector across the country,’’ said Mahajan.

In addition, the government will offer capital investment incentives for the tourism sector, refund of CGST tax, discount on electricity tariff, financial incentives for micro, small and medium enterprises, interest and subsidy incentives, additional incentives for women entrepreneurs, Scheduled Castes-tribes, differently-abled, domestic and foreign tourism exhibitions, travel Incentives to tourism stakeholders for participation in Show Marts, Rural Tourism Melas.

Mahajan explained the nature of incentives saying that the government will provide incentives for organising Annual Melas (up to Rs 15 lakh each), stamp duty and registration fee waivers, incentives for youth tourism, tourism awards, incentives for skill development programmes, incentives for research in tourism/hospitality industry (up to Rs 10 lakh), incentives for information and communication technology empowerment (up to Rs 10 lakh), incentives for revival of rare arts, culture and cuisine (up to Rs 5 lakh), incentives for innovative products/services (up to Rs 50,000).

Moreover, the government will provide incentives for providing employment to the disabled, incentives for eco-tourism certification (up to Rs 10 lakh) and incentives for agriculture, caravans and adventure tourism.

Mahajan said that the government proposes to give various awards in order to develop sustainable and responsible tourism of the highest quality in the state and thereby give a boost to tourism in rural areas and also agricultural tourism.

For tourism industries in rural areas, home stay and agro tourism the government will conduct competitions.

“The policy focusses on attracting tourists from the country and the state, promoting trade-income and entrepreneurship, creating employment opportunities in rural and urban areas in the tourism sector, bringing new investment in the tourism sector, increasing the revenue of the state,” said Mahajan.

“The government through a new tourism policy proposes to develop tourism based on local folk culture considering the diverse, multi-provincial and multilingual culture of the state,” he added.

Further, Mahajan said that the policy also lays emphasis on enhancing innovation, productivity and competitiveness through the use of digital technologies.

“The government aims to create an enabling environment for private sector investment with the institutionalisation of a single window system and it will be affiliated with the Maitri system of the Central government,” he noted.