India – GDP Factors - Non-Indian origin foreign tourist incentive scheme

• Our local tour operators should be given tax breaks and cash refund incentives for bringing in foreign passenger of non-Indian origin. Cash refund incentives must be such a way that the tour operator ensures that the foreign tourist visits 2 or 3 places other than the city of arrival to claim tax refund and stays more than 24 hours in every city. The city of arrival and exit into India should be different to ensure cash incentives and refunds. The typical cities of Delhi, Mumbai and Goa will get some breather and new places can promote their tourism like Shillong, Andaman, religious places, etc. Major international companies like Thomas Cook and domestic majors like MakeMyTrip and yatra make no effort to bring in foreign tourists these tax benefits at airport level by AAI and add-on options to existing booking by airlines and railways. $1000 per passenger if we can bring a great wonder for an untapped billion dollar business. 

• Need all year sports calendar which includes winter sports, indoor volleyball, basketball, golf, ice hockey, beach volleyball, sword fighting etc. DD sports must be given free feed for important matches conducted by private organizations/TV channels since Sports Federation is also a part and its Govt owned
• Tour operators and Airlines must have small desk in every locality. Offline stores of makemytrip, yatra, indigo, air india must be encouraged similar to telecom top up kirana stores
• Telecom companies in India have failed to create payment banks with such a large customer base. Kirana stores if they adopt payments through sms and call it will make a huge difference for the government. 
• Utilize the luggage section of trains to full capacity with separate rate at counters using train and airfare. Show some difference in rates in courier between air and by train by Indian Railways partnering with private courier companies and India post. Show difference in rates for road, rail and air.
• Need to ensure TV channels have 1 minute ad breaks per hour with govt sponsored content approved by PIB. Many of the govt schemes don’t reach the common people knowledge through private channels. Hence the effort DD has put needs to be taken forward by other TV channels. All private channels should fulfill their social obligation and Govt has right to win this case if it has legal issue
• Ensure foreign visitors as many as possible during their winter season. They all want to avoid the peak winter in their countries like in UK and North America. Indian airlines and tour operators have failed to bring them in with offers and local tours by default at reduced rates. Existing booking of airlines and railways remain unused during most peak seasons
• Govt must funds its CSR initiatives through its major organizations like Indian Railways, Indian Oil, etc. to create science labs in govt schools, new indoor stadiums in tier 2 and tier 3 cities, libraries in tier 1 and tier 2 cities, 24 hours super markets in key places owned by these companies since many malls still don’t remain open 24 hours but railways operate 24 hours and supermarkets can play vital business (people like big bazaar and local majors can compete). What obligation has Railways done for CSR activities?
• Time for station development fee like user development fee at airports. Nominal fee ranging from Rs. 10 to Rs. 40 will make a huge difference to build malls and major facilities in railway stations. Real estate can see new energy in major hubs like railway stations.
• All religious places in India must be asked to paste their bank account details for online payments and donations. It should be made a priority to encourage digital transactions so that banks and IT can validate and provide tax reliefs appropriately

Tourism – Central UDAAN portal to claim subsidy with Aadhaar or passport as ID, all cabs/autos in India with rate card per tourist location like Shillong, Add-on 1 day tours/hotel booking for existing and new booking in Indian Railways and Airlines

•India should use a common tourism agency or Aadhaar UIDAI or RBI to manage a portal for UDAAN and discounts and other benefits for first time travelers to a particular route or sector irrespective of airline for first time travellers in that route. UDAAN must offer discounts for long distance travel also. I recently travelled many places but UDAAN/Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) effect was no where to be found, not a word by airlines or websites or in airports or in ticket booking of RCS route. RCS will see boost if portal is maintained and subsidy is issued as kms of free travel for next time booking/cash incentives credited to bank accounts. The cost of going to north east from any metro is costly than going abroad. There are no direct flights to many tourist places in India. 

• Tour operators and airlines must be present in every locality to promote tourism. Airlines and tour operators can open small desk like telecom operators to ensure major tourism boost in India. Offline small stores of makemytrip, yatra can make major difference to formalize the indian tourism industry

•UDAAN will be used in corporate booking also effectively so that the corporate traveler/employee who travels first time will explore new routes and sectors to expand his business and leisure. So create a common portal to claim 1st time travel subsidy under RCS. The user must first check eligibility for the route using Aadhaar or passport or voter id card. May be entire KYC can be shifted to RBI or Aadhaar based authority for subsidy.
•First time air travelers is eligible for UDAAN irrespective of the distance to be travelled every 3 years per route. Currently UDAAN is placed only for short distance routes and the passengers are not encouraged to explore far off places. A person from Mumbai can explore North East or the Andaman Islands only if UDAAN plays a major role for longer routes. Also leaves provided by companies are put to good use in short notice like weekends, etc. and saving our airlines. Subsidy eligibility must be done prior to travel by passenger online in govt portal and claimed post arrival as bank transfer. I never clearly get the feel of UDAAN as there is no portal involved or airlines don’t state which flights are Udaan/RCS in their portal. The entire north east region connectivity is costly as if like different region.
•These domestic routes (new RCS routes/ new airports/new direct short flights) can be cross-subsidized by allocating funds from budget and Rs.100/ticket from peak routes and Rs.200/ticket from international departures and arrivals to encourage the urban middle class to experience different sectors.  The north east & many places remain unexplored. Example: Metros – North East/Islands is costly than going abroad
•Railways and all airlines in India need to provide extra add on features while booking for cab transfers, hotels, 1 or 2 day local tours/sight seeing packages by default for selection. Both railways and airlines have failed to capitalize on the thousands of existing bookings in their systems. They have failed to provide any options to generate revenue and customer satisfaction on the other end. Local tour operators will also benefit this way. GDP needs major formal employment and revenue generation through tourism. Railways has failed to tap existing booking with add on bookings.
•Bus companies and online app based cab drivers must tie up together to provide 1 day tour packages within and outside city with rate card/location
•International arrivals of flights to India must contain similar features for passengers with hotel booking, cab booking, food, local tours, etc. International tourists if they spend $1500 in India per passenger also will make great difference. When Singapore can bring in tourists in large droves why not out airlines while booking itself add all options in one shot. Those they don’t want they can ignore. We are not providing facilities in our websites itself for these needs as a standard operating procedure.
•Railways must give discount offers to passengers who are traveling in new routes for first time which are away from base station based on historical data and places earmarked as tourist or religious sites. All travel details will be mapped to some ID card by default. Railways can generate data based on historical information and give offers for long distance travel above a certain limit. The youth and working age middle class should be encouraged to travel across the country in young age to know various regions better.

Reforms targeting improving Indian Economy

1. Govt procuring electric vehicles and sale of 2 wheeler, 3 and 4 wheeler to target middle class and auto drivers a major contributor of transportation in India. Reduction in fuel import with massive electric vehicles drive will boost the market. Govt must procure 1lakh 2-wheelers (Rs.200 crores at Rs.20,000/vehicle or less), 50,000 3-wheeler and 50,000 4-wheelers. The vehicles must not be imported but completely made in India by current vehicle manufacturers like bajaj, hero, honda,tvs, yamaha.

2. Energy bill of commercial space has to be reduced significantly by asking commercial establishments to use their power supply and their water supply effectively at lowest cost. Solar power generators are not installed in most commercial places. Water meters are nowhere to be seen anywhere in India.

3. Manufacture of HAL aircraft's for transport purposes will save Indian govt a lot of money. HAL aircraft for UDAAN to be utilized.

3. Govt of India doesn't have its own CSR policy so that the public funds from taxes and other revenue streams are used to purchase college and school science projects. These projects should be purchased and patented by Govt of India and the concerned school and students should be made members of these patents. Patent revenue is a huge business. Why has govt of india not been able to fund one project like google which was helped and supported by USA govt and FB which was later supported indirectly by USA govt. Why has indian govt not been able to identify and fund any project like this in large scale? Has indian product development knowledge not been upto the market trend. Govt of India needs to first identify and purchase such projects and fund them. Private funding is purely a complex business. Govt school students and govt university students research must be funded extensively.

4. IRCTC having tourist option. Having add on option for all existing bookings for tourist and business visitors who wish to visit places. Strong legislation to ensure earned leaves and compulsory leaves are given in offices for tourist purposes. The family tours will give a break for the officials and govt staff and executive staff and employees in all types of organisations giving new ideas and inspiration from other states. Giving a break from the digital content, TV, internet for the general population will give breather of new ideas and tourism is promoted.

5. The concepts of Air travel by low cost hasn't picked up as expected. Weekend getaways have been costly by air since the many schemes are not properly funded by the central and state govts. The tax collected for air must ensure newly rich move to air travel and ensure the lower middle class go to higher end railways. But the air travel is not accessible by direct flights to many places within a state or to other state tier 2 cities. For example: chennai to tirupathi is not well directly connected. They all are transiting through hyderabad which aint should be the case. Mumbai to thirupathi and chennai to thirupathi atleast weekends must be targeted.

6. Weekend Getaway Tours  by Air and Rail - The tourists places of north east need well connectivity at extreme low cost as the hilly region needs inter -connected air travel at low cost. the north east and the islands must be available at low fare weekend getaways. Most websites offer 5 days or more days of tours which are costly and nobody would like to get bad name from the managers during work time and they have to only use their weekends. hence 2-3 days tours should be given high priority so that atleast 50% of their leave quota in earned leaves are used effectively. Govt has to pull this information internally and process the same.

7. Correspondence courses in India lacks a single format across all universities. Some universities offer best content some dont offer class rooms classes even for 1 day for that semester. The universities have failed to maintain standard. The govt of india has failed to maintain order in the nation in the case of higher education. Correspondence courses need to be streamlined for the human development index of individuals to improve on continuous basis. 

Add-On features for existing booking of train and flight tickets

Railways needs to make following changes to IRCTC website:

Use its IRCTC portal and apps to cater to existing booking with new add-ons like Cab booking, local tour (same day or 2 days), etc,. The repeated trial and errors will ensure IRCTC to capitalise on existing thousands of bookings. Some users will be struggling to book local tours with issue of local language, etc,. Railways may have to spend some of its budget to add these features.

The seats must be available in highly demand routes permanently once scheme picks up. Currently most tours are targeting 7-8 days but 1-3 days tours must be ensured so that people can use their leave allowances atleast to 50% or 2/3rd of their needs.

IRCTC can provide tourist option in home page after selecting from and to station Also for already Pre-booked tickets these options may be used. In apps and in website for already booked tickets irctc has made no effort to provide add-on service using local tour operators. Employment can be generated.
       
The option will ensure that the following option of choosing transit cab, hotels, food, local tours (2-3), places of visit with option to skip is provided in separate or same portal. No place within India will require 2 days or more for site near railway place. Even if 50% of day gone in transporting from railway station. 2 days must be more than enough to look at a place. Railways must focus on these areas.

Local tour operators will ensure employment to great extent and local cab aggregators can be tied up with or non app based drivers can be linked up to this scheme as well

Since IRCTC website has improved post the recent increase in capacity the above option as add on to existing visitors or direct tourist may be provided.

Those who are travelling purely for using the train will ignore tourist option so no issue but the other area of making tourism as a pillar of service sector GDP growth the above measure will help

Railways must also update its apps so that existing booking get modifications so that new options are available similar to theatre booking to select options of booking for cab, popcorn, etc,. The user will skip those options which they dont want.

Existing airlines and booking sites dont provide add-ons to existing bookings like cabs, local tour packages as part of the same. The local tours should target for 2-3 days and not for 7-8 days for tours within country.