These fake guides of Nainital! Cheating tourists on New Year, extorting huge commission from hotel owners

Nainital. During the peak season of Christmas and New Year, when Uttarakhand’s ‘Sarovar Nagri’ Nainital is buzzing with tourists coming from India and abroad, at the same time a gang of fake guides has also become active in the city. Despite the strict warnings of the administration and the actions taken in the past years, this time also the number of fake guides seems to be increasing. These guides, taking advantage of tourism, give wrong information to the tourists, give expensive packages and sometimes cheat the tourists from hotel booking to location visit, which leads to economic loss as well as security crisis.

In the last one week, the police have received many complaints in which tourists said that they were cheated in the name of guiding. Some got entangled in hotel booking while some were forced to charge more money during the journey. Nainital Police has now become fully alert and checking has been increased on Mall Road, Tallital Bus Station, Mallital Flats, Cheena Baba Square, Snowview Point and major tourist routes.

Hotel owners are extorting huge commission from tourists
A large number of tourists are continuously reaching Nainital to get relief from the increasing pollution in the plains and to celebrate the New Year. Every day thousands of tourists are staying from Tallital to Mallital of the city, enjoying boat rides and seeing major view points. Taking advantage of this crowd, fake guides have become active from roads, bus stands to rickshaw stands. These guides often call themselves “authorized guides” and prepare expensive packages in advance and mislead innocent tourists in the name of hotels, local sightseeing and boating. In many cases, these guides collect huge amounts of money from tourists by taking commission from hotel owners.

How to identify a licensed guide?
In Nainital, licenses are issued only to guides authorized by the Municipality. They have an official identity card of the municipality, uniform or authorized badge and a fee structure approved by the government. Apart from this, many hotels also appoint their own employees as guides, whose arrangements are the responsibility of the hotel management. But the problem arises where people without any license or ID commit fraud by posing as guides.

Police is strict, action will start on a large scale
Giving information, SSP Nainital Manjunath TC said that recently in the meeting of IG Kumaon, this problem was discussed from the security point of view. He said that he is continuously getting information about fake guides. He informed that tourists are being misled by fake guides in the city and complaints are being received continuously due to which traffic is also being affected and wrong pressure is being put on the tourists.

Instructions for strict action against fake guides
Strict action will be taken against such people for which instructions have been given to Mallital Kotwal and Tallital SO. On this matter, the EO Municipality clearly stated that no license has been issued by the Municipality to such guides. The administration has appealed to the tourists not to accompany any guide without confirming his identity. In case of any doubt, immediately contact 112, local police helpline or tourism helpline.