Ayodhya to be developed into tourism site, with Rs 10-cr investment.
The Government of India’s tourism ministry is planning 30-40 ‘tourism parks’ across the country.
Minister Subodh Kant Sahay, visiting here to accept two awards for the Incredible India! campaign, said the parks would be designed on the lines of famous attractions like the Sentosa island resort in Singapore.
He said plans were on to double inbound foreign tourists from around five million now to 10 million over the next five years. The bigger challenge would be to also try to improve domestic tourism. Currently, an estimated 11 million Indians visit foreign lands for tourism, twice the number of people from outside visiting India.
Creating more convention centres to serve corporate demand is one way of improving domestic tourism within India, he said. Developing tourism sites that offer more than religious and spiritual value was another plan the ministry was working on.
Sahay said 63 cities were being developed to match in infrastructure with major metropolitan cities like Delhi and Mumbai.
“At least 40 destinations will be developed as circuits for tourists,” Sahay told reporters. The tourism ministry currently offers religious circuits for different faiths like Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, etc.
Plans are also on to make the road trip between Delhi and Agra to a shorter two-hour time. “The 12th five-year plan has recommended that rural poverty can best be solved by developing tourism. For every Rs 1 million spend in this industry we can create 80 jobs,” the minister said.
His ministry is also planning to train 25 million people who could serve the tourism industry. About 50 million people in India work within the tourism industry, he said.
A Rs 10-crore investment has been approved by the central government to develop Ayodhya as a tourism destination.
