India sets up tourist safety hot line

India has dispatched police officers for tourists in most of its states and plans to launch a help line from which tourists can seek help in emergency situations, according to India’s secretary of tourism.

A series of highly publicized rape cases, including the alleged drug rape of a 23-year-old Korean woman and the death of a 23-year-old Indian woman after a gang rape on a bus in south Delhi last December, has raised questions about the safety of female travelers in India.

“We are very much concerned about recent sexual assaults and police have stepped up policing very heavily. There are flying squads patrolling the streets,” said Indian Secretary of Tourism Shri Parvez Dewan in an interview with The Korea Herald on Friday. Dewan was in Seoul last week as part of their tourism promotion tour. 

Dewan attributed the frequency of rapes in the country to its large population.

“India has about 20,000 rape cases in a year, which means 60 rapes a day and one rape every 20 minutes. India is one of the biggest countries in the world,” he said.

He noted that India was also looking into the possibility of launching a hotline in Korean.

“We will make an effort to have a telephone information line in Korean. Koreans having problems in India can get information. It will be open throughout the day and week. You can also call for free from Korea to learn about India,” he said.

Dewan said Korea was an important market for India.

“The state-run hotels in India use Korean television and DVDs,” he said. “So we would like to see the number of Korean tourists go up by 20 to 25 percent.” 

About 160,000 Koreans visited India last year.

He said people could discover the modern side of India rather than just visiting traditional popular tourist spots such as the Taj Mahal and the Buddhist pilgrimage sites.

“There are golf courses made by the world’s best golf designers and the world’s second oldest golf range,” said Dewan. India’s Royal Calcutta golf course, founded in 1829, boasts one of the longest histories.

“People can get world-class medical surgery for much less than Korea and other developed countries,” said Dewan, who said coronary artery bypass surgery costs about $6,900 and hip replacement surgery $6,500.

Asked what was the most incredible aspect of India that the country wanted tourists to discover, Dewan said it was the Taj Mahal, explaining that even Indian people still found it mysterious.

India has been promoting tourism under the “Incredible India” campaign that was launched in 2002.

The number of foreign tourists to India grew by about 9 percent to 6.5 million between 2010 and 2011.

By Lee Woo-young  (wylee@heraldcorp.com)