Mysuru: The Tourism Department must form Village Tourism Committees across the district, as the forest that runs through these villages are a part of them, said Tourism and Kannada and Culture Minister C.T. Ravi.

He was chairing a progress review meeting of the Tourism and Kannada and Culture Departments at the DC Office auditorium, here yesterday and said that to introduce the unique history of every village to the people, PUC and under-graduate students must be selected and encouraged to collect information on rural art, their vocation, tradition and religious practises.

This digitised information must be uploaded on the website and through this approach one will come to understand the history of the villages. This must be taken up at the State-level too, he added.

He said that he had directed the officials to introduce the tourists to the culture of cultivation in Mandya district and Ramanagar’s food culture. Similarly, this is the perfect platform to introduce Mysuru’s heritage, culture and Dasara festival’s importance. Also on such occasions, efforts must be put to see that new and unique things related to places are gleaned, he pointed out.

quiz contest: Tourism Department Deputy Director H. Janardhan said that on Sept.27, divisional-level quiz contest has been arranged for children at Mysore Palace.

Reacting to this, District in-charge Minister V. Somanna said that in Children’s Dasara Sports, even physically challenged children must be given preference to participate, besides creating a clean and conducive atmosphere by providing basic amenities, prior to the commencement of activities, at Rajkumar and Vishnuvardhan Parks.

It must be seen that the grants given to the Girijans from the Kannada and Culture Department reaches them and also see that awareness is created among them about many of the Government programmes that they are entitled to, said Minister Ravi.

Kannada and Culture Department Assistant Director Chennappa said that the development works in many of the buildings like Samskritika Bhavan, Basava Bhavan, Kappadi Kshetra were in progress and nearly 364 artistes in the district were getting monthly stipend of Rs.1,500.

CSR initiative: He also informed the meeting that a proposal of Rs. 80 lakh had been sent to both Bank Note Paper Mill India Pvt. Ltd. (BNPMIPL) and Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Pvt. Ltd. (BRBNMPL) to renovate Kalamandira’s toilet facilities, seats, light and sound equipment and for the development of Kiru Rangamandira and other works under their CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) activities.

Reacting to this, Minister Ravi said that Kalamandira must be technically well-equipped and there is a thinking to appoint a person to maintain the grand place and asked the Kannada and Culture Assistant Director to send a proposal in this regard.

He also directed him to send one more proposal to set up an International-level Exhibition Centre and to identify 100 acres of land for this purpose as the number of tourists to the city is going up year by year.

MLAs K. Mahadev and Tanveer Sait, Additional Deputy Commissioner B.R. Poornima, and other officials were present.