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Mahakumbh gets ₹2,500 crore push; state gets set to give makeover to religious sites
Around 25 crore (24.87 crore precisely) tourists (a majority of them domestic) visited the state in 2022, finance minister Suresh Khanna said while tabling the state budget for 2023-24 on Wednesday.
Having witnessed a significant jump in tourist footfall since the launch of the Kashi Vishwanath (KV) Corridor in December 2021, the Yogi 2.0 government has now decided to push ahead with its plan for a makeover of religious hotspots, one which the government is sure will help create jobs, boost economy and bring in investment.
A provision of ₹2,500 crore was made for Mahakumbh 2025 to be held in Prayagraj. In 2022-23, the government had set aside ₹621.55 crore for the same event.
Around 25 crore (24.87 crore precisely) tourists (a majority of them domestic) visited the state in 2022, finance minister Suresh Khanna said while tabling the state budget for 2023-24 on Wednesday.
Out of the total, 24.83 crore were domestic tourists, the finance minister said as he indicated how tourism, religious tourism in particular, could ramp up revenue generation and job creation.
Buoyed by these numbers, the government has now decided to promote youth tourism, and a token outlay of ₹2 crore was set aside in the budget for the same. The government also set aside ₹2.5 crore for the establishment of a board for development of eco-tourism.
Khanna also spoke about tourism development in the Gorakhpur-Devipatan-Dumariyaganj region in east UP under the Spiritual Circuit Scheme as he referred to the integrated tourism development in Jewar, Dadri, Secunderabad, Noida, Khurja and Banda under the same scheme. He also delved on how the Yogi government had concentrated on implementing approved schemes for tourism development.
“Tourism development and beautification of Ayodhya, Varanasi, Chitrakoot, Vindhyachal, Prayagraj, Naimisharanya, Gorakhpur, Mathura, Bateshwar Dhaam and many other important places are in progress,” he said.
“Under the chief minister’s tourism promotion scheme, the development of tourist sites is being done at ₹300 crore,” he said.
The finance minister also referred to the ₹50 crore push for the integrated tourism development of Shakumbhara Devi temple in Saharanpur. Another ₹40 crore was set aside for integrated development of Prayagraj; a similar amount was proposed for Bundelkhand; ₹10 crore for Shukratirth Dhaam.
He also said ₹5 crore was set aside for big national and international events and another ₹2.5 crore were earmarked for Naimisharanya Dham Teerth Vikas Parishad.
