Immense potential in Indian tourism: Anil Agarwal

Stating that the Indian tourism sector has immense potential, industrialist Anil Agarwal on Friday suggested privatisation of major tourist attractions like monuments and museums to generate revenues. The billionaire was speaking at ''New India: Aspiring USD 5 trillion Economy'' session of industry body Assocham.

The biggest attraction in India is tourism with 10,000 years of history with monuments, museums etc, Anil Agarwal, Chairman of Vedanta Resources, said in his address. "What we have, nobody had in the world," he said.

Referring to tourist attractions such as monuments and museums, he said, "These are run by the government. It is the time to think how can we make them independent, how we can make them free". Today India is a place everyone wants to visit. About seven to eight million tourists are visiting every state of the country, he said.

We have to think what we can do to attract tourists, he added. Growing tourism will create employment opportunities and generate revenue, he said on the sidelines of the event.

On the question that whether his remark over making tourist attractions independent means privatisation, he replied in affirmative. "Make it independent. Privatise them but take out some way," he said.