Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday launched the Pravasi Teerth Darshan Yojana under which a group of Indian diaspora will be taken on a government-sponsored tour of religious places in India twice a year.
The first batch of 40 Indian-origin people are at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas and from here they will begin their tour.
They will be taken to religious places of all major religions in India and the government will bear all the expenses including the airfare from their country of residence.
All people of Indian-origin aged 45 to 65 can apply and a group will be selected out of them with first preference given to people from 'Girmitiya countries' such as Mauritius, Fiji, Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica.
Prime Minister Modi, during his visit here, also inaugurated Centers of Excellence at Deen Dayal Hastkala Sanku.
Arriving at the venue directly from the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas celebrations, he unveiled a plaque to mark the inauguration of 55 outlets which would serve as Centers of Excellence at the Hastkala Sankul, which is a complex dedicated to the handicrafts of the region.
He also released two books 'Kashi: The Universe of Crafts and Textiles' and 'Indian Textiles: History, Splendour, Grandeur'.
He also unveiled a plaque to mark the inauguration of an Integrated Textile Office Complex, at Chowkaghat here.
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