Tourists facing problem

From a Correspondent

JORHAT, Dec 15: Despite the Gogoi Government’s push to the tourism sector in the State, RBI policy may prove detrimental to tourism, especially for those visitors from outside the country.

With State Bank of India, Tezpur and State Bank of India, Jorhat no longer empowered to convert foreign exchange, tourists from abroad are facing immense problems while visiting these parts.

A tourist here from Arabia was complaining that the only bank which was converting foreign currency now was the ONGC SBI in Sivasagar. On the Kaziranga-Majuli circuit, the tourist said that now he would have to waste a day to go to Sivasagar to get his currency exchanged.

An SBI official here said that, it was in 2004 that the RBI had categorized SBI, Tezpur and SBI, Jorhat as C category banks which from thenceforth could not deal with exchanging foreign currency.

“Only A and B category banks can do this and the categorization depends on volume of transaction. Only Guwahati SBI and ONGC SBI, Sivasagar fall within the A and B categories”, the official said.

So what about the large number of tourists from abroad visiting the Kaziranga National Park. They either get their money exchanged at Guwahati or there are “private parties” at Kaziranga who deal with this albeit at a higher cost.

The large number of tourists visiting Tawang via Tezpur also have difficulties as SBI, Tezpur too has stopped such transactions.

The RBI policy may be perceived as an anti-tourism policy which could seriously hinder tourist flow from abroad to the region. THE SENTINEL