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Pilgrimage tourism new focus area for J-K government
Buoyed by the ever increasing tourists’ footfall, the state government is now focussing on developing a pilgrimage tourism circuit in all the three regions of Jammu Kashmir.
Buoyed by the ever increasing tourists’ footfall, the state government is now focussing on developing a pilgrimage tourism circuit in all the three regions of Jammu Kashmir.
The government has charted a plan to develop three pilgrim tourism circuits one each at Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh regions to promote pilgrim tourism.
“Jammu and Kashmir is rich in pilgrim tourism. To develop pilgrim sites with infrastructure facilities, the government has mooted a comprehensive project report of Rs 150 crore to the Centre for funding,” said state tourism minister Ghulam Ahmad Mir on Monday.
The pilgrimage tourism plan will see the development of a Sufi circuit in Kashmir, pilgrim circuit in Jammu and Buddhist circuit in Ladakh.
“The project is under active consideration of the Central government, which in principle has agreed to provide funds for creation of these circuits,” said the minister.
Around eight shrines of south Kashmir would be developed under the Sufi circuit Kashmir.
“A detailed project would be formulated for landscaping of these shrines,” said the minister.
The minister called upon the youth of the area to opt tourism as their occupation. “The government would provide them soft loans with subsidies for setting up of various ventures under the sector,” he said.
