At a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) initiative last week, the Tourism Secretaries of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry inked an agreement to forge a southern regional tourism grid. Karnataka, which was not represented at the meeting, may be expected to fall in line before long. It is time the southern States realised that while healthy competition among themselves was good, much more could be achieved if they worked together on a common agenda. This should include areas such as power, river waters, education, health, and tourism. A certain amount of coordination has been established in the energy sector and a mechanism, in the form of a well-knit grid, is in place to ensure equitable distribution and sharing of power. Except in rare instances when power is overdrawn causing a trip in supply to a neighbouring State, this seems to be working well. Tourism offers significant potential for cooperation, both in marketing the destinations and in putting together convenient and attractive packages covering important centres across the region. At the Puducherry meeting, the focus was basically on heritage and pilgrim centres of the south.
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