National Conference (NC) President and Member of Parliament from Srinagar Dr. Farooq Abdullah on Saturday stated that sustainable tourism can be a driving force of job creation, economic growth and development in Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh.Abdullah as per a statement issued to the news agency was speaking in his presidential address at the National Meet on Safety Culture and Energy conservation at Sonamarg.Addressing the meet, Dr Farooq dispelled the myths about Kashmir and said that the region is entirely safe for tourists. The to-do list for visitors in Kashmir, Dr Farooq said espouses camping, trekking, motor biking, Gondola, Skiing, White river rafting on one hand and cultural tourism on the other hand. He said the region has to offer a lot to meet the expectations of the visitors.Dr Farooq also underscored the need of harvesting Renewable resources of energy to meet the ever growing demands of the nation. “Nature has a limit; we cannot go on robbing it of its forests and other fossil fuels. A time will reach when most of our fossil fuels will get depleted. Sustainable development has long been acknowledged by the United Nations. It is better we also mainstream this sustainable feature of development in our country by the judicious use of fossil fuels and other non renewable sources. The future belongs to renewable energy and JK has a lot to offer on that front. We have the sun shine, the wind, biomass and the gushing rivulets that offer an immense potential to cater to the future demands of the energy sector,” he said.Dr Farooq also urged the tourism players to shift towards green tourism by decreasing their dependency on non renewable sources of energy. “The measure I believe will go a long way in protecting our environment, our glaciers, our rivers and quality of air,” he added.Stressing on the safety stands of the working force, mainly the manual labourers working in mega mining, rail road and tunnel projects, he said the government is duty bound to ensure the safety and security of workers. There ought to be a multipronged strategy and policy framework to address the safety concern of manual laborers, which he said are the hands of the nation.He said both private and public sector companies should have critical health care gadgets and parameters in place to deal with any eventuality at construction sites.Besides party senior leader and former legislature Mian Altaf Ahmed nearly 150 delegates from across India and cross section of industries participated. (KNO)
