Covid-19 pandemic hits tourism training initiatives in Bihar

The coronavirus pandemic has impacted not just tourists, but also some of the Centre’s tourism training programmes in Bihar, officials said.

The tourism awareness and sensitisation programme (TASP) and the entrepreneurship programme (EP) are among a few training initiatives, derailed by the pandemic, said officials quoted above.

Only half the annual target of 360 stakeholders has been trained this year under the TASP, which seeks to focus on cleanliness and enhancing soft skills of tourism stakeholders.

The Institute of Hotel Management, Catering Technology and Applied Nutrition (IHM), Hajipur, a hospitality management school run under the aegis of ministry of tourism, government of India, and the department of tourism, Bihar, mandated to undertake the task, however, hopes to train 270 trainees this financial year, as three TASP capsules are lined up later this month.

The IHM could train only 120 under TASP in the last financial year, the first year of the pandemic, said officials.

The TASP training schedule, which had to be completed before March, is also running behind schedule.

“We have planned three training capsules, of three days’ each, around the Thawe temple in Gopalganj district, Simaria Ghat at Begusarai and Mandar Parvat in Banka district later this month. We got delayed because of the pandemic,” said Niraj Kumar, a faculty, food and beverage service at the IHM, Hajipur.

Under the TACP programme, IHM experts identify stakeholders, primarily shopkeepers, street vendors, confectioners, hotel and resort staff around temples and tourist destinations, and impart them hands-on training in cleanliness, personal hygiene and grooming, soft skill behaviour, including inter-personal communication, posture and body language, etc. all of which can help them increase customer footfall.

The IHM completed similar training around Madhubani’s Saurath Sabha, a historical village, famous for its annual gathering of thousands of Maithil Brahman to match couples during the Hindu months of Jyestha-Aasadh; the Ram Janki temple in Sitamarhi, as well as the Simultala and Bheem band area, both in Jamui district.

“The training is free. We also compensate our trainees for the wage loss at the rate of ₹500 for the three-day training,” added Kumar.

Similarly, the first of the financial year’s entrepreneurship training programme, presently underway, with 30 shopkeepers, mostly confectioners around the Hariharnath temple in Sonepur of Vaishali district, has also been delayed.

“Earlier scheduled to begin in December last year, we had to postpone the 22-day EP training to March due to the third wave of the pandemic,” said Kumar.

“We are now training the shopkeepers on hygienic methods of preparing sweets, including ‘ladoo’ and ‘peda’, used as ‘prasad’ (offering) near the temple, and also in making savouries, sold at roadside stalls,” he added.

A Central team was critical of the unhygienic conditions in which sweets were made around temples and directed the IHM to identify trainees among confectioners and cooks at shops, tea stalls and hotels around temples in Patna and Vaishali, said another official.

The IHM is also training around 90 waiters and cooks, already skilled but not certified, of small-time hotels near the Mahavir temple and the Patna Saheb gurudwara in Patna, under its skill testing and certification programme (STCP). The six-day programme will end on March 16.

“We impart basic etiquettes to cooks and waiters, who have been working for long without proper certification, besides telling them how to handle and store food hygienically so that they retain their freshness. We give them certificate after their skill test upon completion of the abridged hotel management capsule course of six days that gives them recognition and improves their employability prospect,” said Kumar.

Those attending the training will be paid ₹1,800 as compensation of wage loss for six days.

Besides focussing on hygiene and cleanliness, the entrepreneurship programme, for which the participants get a consolidated ₹1,500, aims to hone skills by imparting behaviour and grooming tips to novice street vendors, both organised and unorganised, hotel and dhaba staff, flower sellers, tourist guides, priests, petrol pump attendants, etc. who want to enter the tourism sector, but are constrained to do so due to lack of finesse and paucity of funds.