Kathmandu, Sept 17: Nepal government today constituted a high level crisis management cell under the chairmanship of minister for tourism and civil aviation to provide security to the tourists in view of the three day country-wide general strike called by the Maoists starting tomorrow. Announcing this at a press conference here, Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation Sarvendranath Shukhla asked the Maoists not to disturb the tourism sector while carrying out their general strike.

Pointing that tourism generates USD 150,000,000 foreign currency for Nepal annually, which is 17 percent of its total foreign exchange earning, he said the Maoists who fight for socio-economic causes, should not indulge in destructive and anti-social activities. The three-day shut down will badly affect Nepal's tourism and industry costing the country about 30 million US dollar, he said and urged the rebels to resolve the political problem through peaceful means of dialogue.

The minister said the tourism industry is providing employment to some 2.5 lakh Nepalese people directly or indirectly thus launching such programmes in a tourist season like this will be too costly for the Nepalese who are highly dependent on tourism for their livelihood.

Despite the continuing insurgency tourist inflow to Nepal has slightly increased in the past eight months. From January to August 2003 a total of 148,640 tourists visited Nepal by air, which is 13 per cent increase over the previous year, he said and attributed this to the growing number of Indian tourists, who registering a remarkable 33 per cent growth. Bureau Report