Why are our tourist sites not well developed?

One of the most commonly heard complaints about Government maintained establishments are that they are badly run and suffer from inadequate maintenance. No where is this more evident than in some of the tourist spots across the country. A recent visit to some of the country's premier historic sites left me wondering as to why we cannot develop and maintain them like even the many much less important and smaller tourist locations in the Europe and the US.

Very often, developing a tourist spot to international standards requires substantial investments that cannot be met from the regular budgetary allocations for capital expenditures. Given the compelling political need for striking a semblance of equity in the allocation of such funds, Government departments end up allocating shares which while satisfying the political compulsions, serves no substantive purpose. The minimal allocation is most often frittered away in small incremental additions and adhoc expenditures. The tourist site continues to partake of minimal allocations every year, without it making any dent on its total requirements.

Instead the Tourism Department ought to prioritize from among competing needs. It needs to identify those sites which are the priority for development, given its historic importance and popularity. It also needs to prepare Detailed Project Reports for the comprehensive development of such facilities, and channel the annual departmental capital expenditure allocations for completely covering these needs over a specified implementation period. Apart from being delivered as a full grant, a substantial part of this assistance can be funnelled as viability gap funding or bridge financing, to complement private investment. Any capital expenditure allocation should be provided only as part of a detailed development plan that comprehensively covers the full development needs of the tourist site.

The example of tourist sites and the Toursim Department can be extended to cover the workings of most other Government departments. This is another manifestation of the some-allocation-to-all complex that pervades all Government decsion making, and has been bought out in the case of our poverty alleviation programs in a previous post.

When faced with huge resource requirements and competing demands, Governments need to prioritize among those needs that generate the maximum marginal benefits, and not spread resources out too thinly. The maintenance expenditures, like the poverty mitigation efforts, should be spread out to cover all the establishments. However, like the poverty elimination programs, the capital expenditures should be more focussed and targetted in a prioritized manner, so as to maximize the marginal benefits. The plan should be to develop all our tourist sites in a phased manner to world class standards.