According to the KITE project website developed and hosted by the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government, there are six projects ongoing in the province under KITE. These include destination planning and management, accessibility and road connectivity, development of heritage tourism, tourism facilitation, eco-tourism in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and a contingent emergency response.
Under destination planning and management, the KP government has identified four Integrated Tourism Zones (ITZs) in the Malakand and Hazara divisions, which include Mankiyal Jaba site in Swat, Ganol in Mansehra district, Thandiani in Abbottabad and Madakhlast in Chitral district. Within the heritage tourism component is the following: “upgradation and restoration of museums, heritage assets and archaeological sites throughout KP. Major museums of the province including Peshawar Museum, Abbottabad Museum, DI Khan (Derajat) Museums and Kalash Dur Museum have been redesigned through Architectural Expert and supported by new showcase designs, attractive lighting and better facilities for visiting tourists.”
Other sites for which, as per the KITE website, contracts have been signed are:
3 Mosques – Kalam, Pishmal, Odigram, in district Swat
2 Stupas – Shapula and Bhamala, in districts Khyber & Haripur respectively
3 Museums – Mardan, Hund Museum in Swabi and Chakdara district (Lower Dir)
In addition to the above, this component also includes road sign boards for heritage sites, illumination and renovation of museums and such sites.
The tourism facilitation components include installation of fabricated toilets at the touristic sites, provision of facilitation points and emergency call centres. The ecotourism component includes campaigns for the environment, solid waste management and waste collection.
The KITE project at face value seems a very good initiative by the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government, where tourism increases with every passing year, and because of the increased influx, this can be a disaster to the environment. This influx puts greater pressure on the existing roads and other infrastructure in the beautiful valleys.
Despite having pretty much funded the local stakeholders, the people have a number of grievances as well.
Many local people are of the view that under the guise of making the integrated tourism zones (ITZs), many private investors are encouraged to buy lands in the highland pastures at a very low rate from the locals. This, according to a local activist in Bahrain, Swat, who opted to be anonymous, is actually ‘land grabbing’ and fueling many disputes among the local people. Many local people have the perception that they will soon lose the right to their beautiful highland pastures. Their cattle will no longer be allowed to these areas once the ITZs are constructed.
Javed Iqbal Torwali, an indigenous knowledge scholar from Ramet, Swat, was particularly angry about ignoring the local languages and folklore as ‘heritage’ under the heritage component of the project. He said that the government considered only tangible things as heritage, and this indicates the lack of their knowledge.
Many locals in Kalam and Bahrain said that their areas are the most cherished tourism zones in the entire Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Yet the youth of other areas are trained in hospitality and tourism management. One young journalist and local activist from Kalam, Hayat Muhammad Khan, opined that the government and concerned departments have ignored the youth of Kalam while providing training to young people in tourism management.
Nawab Kalami, a local businessman in Kalam, says that the ex-chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Mahmood Khan, usually focused on people from his own tehsil, Matta, in Swat, to be recruited in the tourism sector related jobs – whereas youth from touristic areas like Kalam and Kumrat have never really been given the opportunity to get training as entrepreneurs in tourism.
Four years have passed since the project was approved by the government, and people are apprehensive that the roads to touristic areas will not be completed within the project timeline.
An officer associated with a consultant firm says to me while requesting anonymity that the project may not be able to get its promised infrastructure complete, because the devastating floods in August 2022 have posed many pressing challenges, destroying much of the already intact infrastructure.
Whether the project could be completed in time or not, the ex-MPA Mian Sharafat Ali, who was also a focal person for tourism to the ex-chief minister, has not given any answer to my queries sent to him three weeks ago.
The project director of the KITE project also did not respond to my questions, despite repeated requests on WhatsApp.