Hon’ble Union Minister Shri Kishan Reddy, give away prizes to the winners of the PGTI Golconda Masters Telangana Open golf championship!

Golf Tourism to be encouraged in a big way by involving Indian Embassies abroad: Kishan Reddy

·  Tourism Ministry to launch massive publicity abroad for reviving tourism sector in the country

·  To provide succour to adversely affected, Tour Guides, Operators from September

·  Government is drafting a tourism policy

Hyderabad: Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI), the official body representing professional Golf in India, has just concluded its first tournament of this season at Hyderabad Golf Association golf course, today. The seventh edition of the Golconda Masters Telangana Open Golf Championship was held against the backdrop of the heritage Golconda Fort. Some of the best golf professionals of the country participated including the Olympian Udayan Mane, providing Hyderabad with scintillating Golf action of international standard. This has stimulated the youth of the city and will go a long way in promoting golf to a very high level.

Chief Guest Shri G. Kishan Reddy; Hon’ble Union Minister of Tourism, Culture & Development of North Eastern Region of India, Government of India; presided over the Closing Ceremony of the coveted Golconda Masters Telangana Open Professional Golf Championship. The Championship had best players, out of the top 129 golfers of the country including 123 professionals and 6 amateurs, vying for honors in the last four days, from September 2^nd to 5^th, 21. We had Olympian Udayan Mane and foreign professionals from USA and Bangladesh participating in the Championship. This Championship offers world ranking points to the top five finishers. The Championship witnessed four rounds of highly competitive golf as part of the Incredible India initiative. This is a great opportunity to showcase Hyderabad as one of the top Golf tourist destinations in the country. This will be a catalyst to promote and help in the progress and popularity of golf in Telangana and boost golf tourism.Also present on the occasion were Dayakar Reddy, President, HGA; Bhaskar Reddy, Captain, HGA; BVK Raju, Hon. Secretary, HGA and Ajay Reddy, Treasurer, HGA.

Shri Kishan Reddy garu said, the Government of India is determined to vaccinate everyone by December this year. The Government under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi is running the world’s biggest vaccination program and have till date vaccinated 69 crore people free of cost, which is a major accomplishment by itself. We want to reach out to the last person to be vaccinated in the country, in the most remotest part,by December this year. It’s also a matter of great pride that India was one of the two countries which invented a vaccine for COVID, besides USA, this raised the stature of Indian scientists and the Country in the world. 153 countries have sought our vaccines and some even paid the respective companies advance amount, but the Government placed an embargo on export till people in our country are vaccinated. Recently we vaccinated 1.33 crore people in a day and are proactively trying to vaccinate everyone by December. That will enable to open up the country’s tourism sector by January, 22. Tourism sector was adversely impacted in the last two years, be it travel agents, tour operators, employees from tourism sector encountered lot of hardship during this time. We are working to provide succour to them from September 15, planning to provide one lakh financial assistance to Tour Guides from Tourism Department, similarly Rs 10 Lakhs to Tour Operators, we will call for applications from these people from September 15^th. Will do massive publicity abroad about our tourism sector from January 2022. Even in our country we will run Dekho Apna Pradesh to target home grown tourists, Prime Minister in fact wanted every Indian who can afford, to visit at least 15 tourist places in the country and we will encourage Indians to opt for tourism in the country. Unfortunately in our country we haven’t encouraged tourism sector to the desired level, in fact there is no tourism policy also in India, it’s not in the state or central government list not even in the concurrent list. We have begun to draft a tourism policy, which will be accessible to public on the website. We will proactively promote tourism. In that Golf Tourism will be given special emphasis, that will attract lot of Golf players and enthusiasts, our country has several advantages, our weather is pleasant through the year, the people here are friendly, language and food is not a problem here for tourists and we have several amenities. We will consult with the Golf Associations in the Country and create a plan, which will be publicised through our embassies across the globe and in a big way encourage Golf Tourism to attract Golf Tourists. In this connection we want Hyderabad Golf Association to give guidance to the Government on how to make Golf Tourism a success.