Tourist guides rally for welfare board and equal opportunities

Tourist guides of the Tourism Department have once again started pleading for their demands. Jaipur social activist Ravi Shankar Dhabhai, representing the tourist guide, on Monday, sent a demand letter to Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma, Deputy Chief Minister Diya Kumari and Prem Chand Bairwa along with Youth and Sports Minister Colonel Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore.

In which a demand was raised that a Tourist Guides Welfare Board should be constituted to solve various problems of licensed tourist guides of the Tourism Department.
In the demand letter, it was said that suggestions should be sought from all the citizens before the budget announcement by the state government.

Ravi Shankar Dhabhai said that in the past also the delegation had met the Joint Secretary of the Chief Minister’s Office and had been informed about all their problems. Protests have also been held last year to ask the Rajasthan government to include all the state and local guides in the personnel department and give them a monthly salary. However, the state government has not yet made any concrete plan and issued orders for their welfare.

Demands

• All the guides should be included in the personnel department and given a regular monthly salary.
• Tourist guides get employment only for 4 months in a year. Concrete arrangements for employment should be made in the remaining months also.
• Affidavits were taken from the tourist guides on behalf of the government. Under which guides cannot work in any government or private sector.
• Pension scheme was not implemented for all the licensed guides of Rajasthan Tourism Department after the age of 60 years.
• RGHS and free transport service were not provided to Rajasthan tourist guides.
• The government’s demand to ensure equal work for each guide by implementing a roster system at all the monuments is incomplete.