Modi's Mausam to co-opt Silk Route?

KOCHI: Kerala's tourism initiative, Spice Route, proposed as part of the Muziris project, is being tweaked to fit the template of Mausam, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's much-hyped transnational initiative aimed at reviving ancient maritime routes and cultural connections with countries in the region.
Kerala tourism has asked former foreign secretary Shyam Saran to submit a concept note "fine tuning'' the Spice Route proposal.Sources said the tourism ministry had a meeting with senior Kerala government officials in Delhi recently where the direction to resubmit'' the concept note was given.
Saran will soon submit his report to the state planning board. This will be routed "through proper channels'' to the Centre to reactivate the project which has been in limbo ever since governments changed at the Centre and in the state.
The Muziris Heritage Project didn't receive any funding last year though the Centre had given Rs 40 crore till last fiscal. Ironically, the Modi government has claimed Spice Route as one of its 15 major achievements on the tourism front in a souvenir published to commemorate its first anniversary.
"This is laughable,'' said CPM leader T M Thomas Issac, MLA, who spearheaded the project when he was finance minister. "We introduced the concept at a meeting of ambassadors from more than 30 countries concerned. Post this meeting, Unesco developed interest in it and an MoU was signed. Modi government has no right to claim it as its achievement,'' he told ToI. "If they can claim credit for Mangalyaan, why not for Spice Route,'' quipped a senior bureaucrat.
The Centre, however, said the move to direct Saran to study the project was not part of integrating it with the Mausam plan. "It's some fine tuning aimed at making Spice Route complementary with Mausam so that both plans benefit,'' tourism secretary Lalit Panwar told ToI.
State Planning Board vice-chairman K M Chandrasekhar said that Saran was preparing a brief note mainly for us to understand how to best blend it with cultures of 30-odd partner countries and identify funding sources.
Kerala, meanwhile, is busy preparing new reports that meets parameters set by the Centre under pilgrimage tourism and coastal tourism projects after all proposals have been put on hold. Pilgrim centres from the state were conspicuously absent in the first list of 14 pilgrim centres released by the Centre under 'Prasad' or Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual Augmentation Drive. "We're making a fresh bid to include Padmanabhaswamy Temple, Cheraman Masjid and Malayattoor Church in Prasad,'' sources said.