Upgrade of Dharamsala craft institute caught in red tape

Tribune News Service

Lalit Mohan

Dharamsala, May 6

The upgrade of the Food and Craft Institute located in the Khaniara area of Dharamsala is caught in red tape. A proposal was mooted last year to upgrade the institute, which offers certificate courses in hospitality and cooking, to an Institute of Hotel Management to provide graduation courses.

The National Council for Hotel Management and Catering Technology had offered to upgrade the institute on two conditions that the state Tourism Department that runs it should recruit contractual or regular faculty for the proposed Institute of Hotel Management and create adequate infrastructure.

The state government assigned the work for creating additional infrastructure for the Food and Craft Institute to the Himachal Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (HPTDC). Sources say that the work for the construction of additional infrastructure is progressing at a tardy pace. As per information provided to the National Council for Hotel Management and Catering Technology by the Tourism Department, the infrastructure will be ready by January 2023.

The National Council has proposed to start a B Sc programme in Hotel and Hospitality Management with 60 seats from the current academic year provided the Tourism Department recruits the required faculty on the contractual or regular basis. The sources say that the file for drafting recruitment and promotion rules for the faculty of the institute is lying in the Tourism Department for the past more than three months.

If the department fails to notify the rules and make recruitment, the institute will lose the opportunity to start even the B Sc course approved by the National Council.

Kangra District Tourism Officer Vinay Dhiman and nodal officer for the project, says that he will be going to Shimla soon to meet the Principal Secretary, Tourism. “We will discuss the issue of drafting rules and regulations for the recruitment and promotion of staff as proposed by the National Council for Hotel Management.”

He says that the issue of slow progress in developing the new infrastructure is also being taken up with the HPTDC, which has been entrusted the job. If the Food and Craft Institute is upgraded, it will be second IHM institute in the state, besides the one in Hamirpur.

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