Mysore/Mysuru: In his Dasara inaugural address, former CM S.M. Krishna urged CM Basavaraj Bommai to develop Mysuru as a key tourist destination by creating a circuit or a package for tourists.
“By Dasara-2022, a clear concept on projecting Mysuru and its tourism, focusing on Dasara can be worked out,” he said requesting the CM to create a platform for tourists to experience Mysuru Dasara and also see tourist spots like Hampi, Belur, Halebeedu, Badami and Pattadakal.
“Look at Singapore as a model to develop tourism. It is very much possible to develop tourism with natural attractions available in abundance. A tourism package covering various tourist spots can be worked out,” he said, recalling his association with Prime Minister of Singapore late Lee Kuan Yew.
“Mysuru is a blessed place and has everything for making the city a major tourist destination. The city needs to be made a focal tourist destination along with other tourist places in Karnataka,” he suggested.
Responding positively, the CM said that the Government was mulling an international tourism circuit connecting Dasara. “Mysuru needs to be promoted and marketed, keeping Dasara in focus and tourism activities would be conceptualised on the lines of tourism-centric events at many international tourist hotspots,” he said. “Twelve more months are left for the next Dasara and I assure you that a tourism package will be implemented after discussing with the officials,” Bommai said.
S M Krishna’s glib observation citing Singapore as an example.
Living in the West, I have been to Singapore on official business and also as a tourist at the same time.
Singapore is one of the 4 important financial centres in the world, the other three are London, New York and Tokyo.
It is also a very important shopping destination, as well as the place where a first rate hospitals, arguably the best in the SE Asia are located, where Indians who are let down by the so called specialists in India, go for proper diagnosis and treatment. It has also two of the top -ranked universities in the world: Nanyang and National University.
It is a very safe place, no armed robbers, chain snatchers, women teasers or rapists, miscreants of any kind,, because, th ey will be caught and will get the most severe punishment, starting with 15 lashes for a crime like spitting gum for example!
No stray dogs or cattle or donkeys roaming about in their streets, which unlike Mysuru are not used as toilets. They are clean with no litters.
Singapore has an excellent and very efficient Metro service. Taxis use meters and the drivers are very polite.
Singapore is a dictatorship although there are elections. The government there know that it is a small place, with virtually no natural resources, except the sea, and hence wants it a place worthy of visits by visitors.
No doubt the late Lee Kwan Yew would have talked to S. M. Krishna, but not in any sense of closeness, as Mr Yew the founder of modern Singapore recognised only the leaders of the Western countries, and ofcourse China.
It is a wrong approach to convert this Dasara for Mysoreans, into a tourism -infested Jamboree. The culture of Mysore and its environment-not much left there, need to be preserved
Why can’t Mysoreans enjoy their Dasra, without being stamped on their feet by tourists?
S M Krishna should stay retired, and enjoy his leisure after busy decades of moving from PSP to Congress and now to BJP.