Evolve mechanism for accurate statistics: Parliamentary Panel to Tourism Ministry

NEW DELHI: The parliamentary standing committee on transport, tourism and culture has advised the ministry of tourism to evolve its mechanism to collate various statistics. Highlight the laxity in scrutiny of data in ‘India Tourism Statistics 2022’ released by the ministry in September; the panel further suggested not to put data in public domain until the authorities are certain about their accuracy.

In its report-- Demands for Grants (2023-24) of Ministry of Tourism—tabled in Lok Sabha recently, the Committee cited instances of inaccurate data.

It pointed out that the number of foreign tourists who had visited the Temple of Laxman in Chhattisgarh was more than the number of international sightseers visited Chhattisgarh in 2021-22. In another instance, the number of travelers from aboard at Mamallapuram in Tamil Nadu was more than the number of foreign tourists who had visited Tamil Nadu during the same period.

Similarly, the Committee also observed that the group of monuments that was never on the list of ‘top 10 most visited monuments of India’, was listed in the fourth place that year.

 “The Committee feels that this shows a lack of scrutiny on part of the ministry as this should have been verified at least at the time of formulating the list of top 10 monuments. The Committee is of the view that data on tourism from government publications are extrapolated and used widely…The Ministry should take all measures to ensure that the data received by it from the ASI (Archeological Survey of India) and the state governments is accurate,” the panel of parliamentarian noted in the report.

During submission before the panel, the ministry contended that a Standard Tourism Methodology had been developed in line with UNWTO (United Nations World Tourism Organisation) for a comprehensive and uniform collection of statistics.

However, the Committee stated that the ministry should take all measures to ensure that the data received by it is accurate.

“The Committee notes that it is the sole responsibility of the ministry of tourism to the authenticity of the data published in their publications, whatever may be sources of collection. Unless and until they are satisfied with the correctness of the data the Ministry should not publish it in the public domain. The Committee recommends that the ministry of tourism may evolve its own mechanism to collect data on the arrival of foreign tourists and domestic tourists and all other data relevant to the tourism sector,” read the report.