Amazed? So, it seems were the Ministry of Finance and the Planning Commission which have decided to order an emergency audit of the Tourism Ministry's tourist offices abroad.

The emergency audit will scrutinize the Union Tourism Ministry's growing empire of tourist offices across the world including New York, Paris and London, whether the tourist office presence is justified by an increase in the number of touristscoming to India and whether the 17 tourist offices in India are not merely duplicating the work of state governments.

The emergency audit comes after the Tourism Ministry turned down a Finance Ministry cost-cutting plan in July which made no bones about `shutting down a majority of the tourist offices located abroad which have made no significant contribution to increasing tourist traffic to India' as per the Finance Ministry note. The Finance Ministry proposal to shut down all but, ten major offices was sent to the Tourism Ministry on July 15. The Tourism Ministry turned down the plan on the plea of the `sterling contributions made by tourist offices which have put India on par with tourist economies like Thailand all over the world'. Incredibly, the Tourism Ministry wants to open more offices abroad and has repeatedly asked the Finance Ministry for more funds. The Tourism Ministry spends Rs 75 crore a year on tourist offices abroad. The smallest offices have no less than four officials drawn from theDirector General of Tourism Office.

In its cost-cutting plan the Finance Ministry pointed out that after a tourist office was opened in Argentina, 17 people visited India from there and: `their reasons for visiting still remain unclear ...., whether they were visiting for tourism or business'. The note points out that this is true for the majority of the tourist offices as according to the Tourism Ministry anyone whose passport shows that he entered India even for 24 hours is defined as a tourist.

The emergency audit will investigate the reasons behind the decrease in the inflow of tourists from countries such as Germany and the United States. Both these countries have tourist offices which have been there for the past decade but, tourist traffic has been steadily declining.

To add to the Tourism Ministry's woes, Air India on September 5 refused to fly free tourist promotion material bluntly claiming that it was a waste since at least 12 tourist offices abroad do not even bother to collect the material.A-I says that the the airline is then forced to take responsibility for the material and its storage which is extremely expensive in the limited space provided to it in airports abroad. A-I cites the fact that in some stations the material remains uncollected for two years. A-I has also wondered if two-year old material which is probably outdated will actually lead to tourist promotion.

The emergency audit will also focus on the local tourist offices since the Planning Commission and the Finance Ministry have repeatedly asked the Tourism Ministry to justify the funds earmarked for them. In a communication sent on August 10 the Planning Commission points out that nearly all state governments run tourist offices and that the Tourism Ministries offices just duplicate the same thing.