National Tourism Coordination Board’s formation approved

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi
(Pakistan News & Features Services) 

The federal government has approved the formation of a 25-member National Tourism Coordination Board (NTCB) for the promotion of tourism in the country.

The decision was taken during the meeting of the Tourism Task Force, chaired by Prime Minister, Imran Khan, held in Islamabad on February 4. 

It’s aimed at promoting tourism, enhancing coordination between federation and provinces, formulating provincial regulatory framework, and highlighting other objectives including the promotion of the country’s tourism at an international level. 

The 25-member NTCB would comprise representatives from federal ministries, provincial departments and people from the private sector tourism industry. 

The meeting was attended by Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination, Dr Fehmida Mirza, Special Assistant to PM, Iftikhar Durrani, PM’s Advisor on Overseas Pakistanis, Zulfiqar Bukhari, provincial ministers and members of the task force. 

It was also decided that the Pakistan Tourism Development Coordination (PTDC) would be restructured and Rs 200 billion properties of PTDC would be transferred to the provinces. The PTDC would serve as the NTCB secretariat. 

The meeting further decided to constitute special working groups on religious tourism, adventure tourism, cultural, historic and archaeological tourism, Trans-Himalaya Jeep Rally Group, infrastructure and facilitation, regulatory and policy reforms, investment and tourism branding. 

The Prime Minister was briefed about the progress achieved in the area of tourism so far and was informed that work on the creation of 20 new tourism sites in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was also in progress. 

He was also briefed about the progress on turning Bala Hissar Fort in Peshawar into a tourism site. 

The Prime Minister, emphasizing on the need for eco-tourism to be given special attention, directed that Bala Hissar Fort should be converted into a centre of tourist activities, adding that arrangement for the commercial use of 800 and 157 rest houses in Punjab and KP should be finalized as soon as possible.