1. Brief Profile: (for more information on travel and tourism, please visit www.mizoramtourism.com )
The Department was created on 24th April 1987 by bifurcating Information, Public Relations and Tourism Department (IPR&T) to act as a nodal agency for development and promotion of tourism in the State. Since then it has been making endless efforts to promote tourism in the State by utilizing the available resources, building new tourist infrastructures, promoting rural tourism, focusing on human resource development and by promoting fairs and festivals. At present, it is headquartered at Aizawl and has no other offices in the districts.
The vision of the Department is “to develop Tourism in a sustainable and integrated manner so as to make Mizoram a major national and international tourism destination, catalyzing growth and economic development”.
The main objectives of the Department are:
Promotion of Tourism Industry with a comprehensive approach and which will not be in conflict with the social, religious and cultural values of the host community.
- To create conducive environment for growth of Tourism Industry by imparting awareness of the scope and the positive impacts of tourism to both urban and rural population.
- To actively promote ecotourism and nature based tourism.
- To upgrade and develop manpower skills with a view to providing requisite expertise to the youth so as to render them fit for employment in this industry.
- To promote Public Private Partnership in development and management of tourist infrastructures in the State.
- To enhance and monitor the growth of tourism by way of registration and formulation of guidelines for the tourism sector.
- To encourage private sector participation for creation of quality tourism infrastructure and to ensure better management of tourism projects.
2. Administrative Set-Up:
The political head of the Department is a Minister, who is a Cabinet Minister in the Government. The administrative head of the Department is Secretary (Tourism), Government of Mizoram.
The Secretary is a senior administrative officer and is Secretary to the State Government as a whole and to the individual Minister. He/She is the principal adviser of the Minister on all matters of policy and administration within the Department having completed and undivided responsibility. The Secretary is assisted by a hierarchical team of officers known as Additional Secretary, Joint Secretary, Under Secretary and Office Superintendent. The Secretary along with his hierarchical team of officers and staff are collectively called the Secretariat Department of Tourism. All officers and staff are mainly drawn from generalist civil servants and Secretariat Services. The Secretariat is mainly concerned with policy making and is regarded as a staff agency.
The Directorate of Tourism can be regarded as the line agency of the Tourism Department. It is mainly concerned with policy execution as an executive arm of the State Government. It converts policies framed by the secretariat into actions. The Directorate is headed by a Director; he is assisted by a Joint Director, three Deputy Directors, Tourist Officers and other subordinate operational and clerical staff.
