Identifying around 900 tourism sites, the Bihar government is preparing a new road map to woo tourists from across the world. The new roadmap is likely to be approved by the end of this month or the first week of June.
The state government had earlier asked all district magistrates of the State to identify spots in their respective jurisdiction to be developed as potential tourist attractions and send a detailed report to the headquarters. According to state tourism department officials, DMs of all 38 districts have sent their reports under which around 900 such spots have been identified which could be developed as tourist places. These places broadly fall into Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, Gandhi and Ramayan Circuit of the state.
“We’ve received details from the district magistrates identifying the potential tourist spots…we’ll first inspect those sites in view of their tourist potential before giving final shape to the roadmap for approval…besides, Buddha and Jain circuit spots, the state has huge potential for other tourism sectors too”, State Tourism Minister Anita Devi said. The MPs, MLAs, and local representatives too have suggested potential spots in their constituencies which could be developed as tourist attractions. “The idea is that visiting tourists should stay in the State for a longer time...it will boost the state’s economy as well”, said a department official. A group of four companies, he said, have been given the task of preparing the roadmap.
Meanwhile, the State tourism department has also geared up to showcase major tourist destinations of Bihar at an event organized by the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce in Calcutta on Friday. Besides highlighting the Buddhist and other heritage tourist spots to the visiting dignitaries at the event, the department officials would also showcase the successful celebration of the recently held 350th Prakash Parv in which Sikh devotees from around the world had visited Patna and enjoyed the festival. Earlier, the annual event of Kalchakra Puja too was successfully organized at Bodh Gaya in which lakhs of Buddhist pilgrims from around the world participated.
Bihar stands at eighth position as far as foreign tourist footfalls are concerned. Patna, Gaya, Bodh Gaya, Rajgir, Vaishali, Nalanda and Banka are major destinations. Last year, over 10 lakh foreign tourists had visited Bihar while in 2015 their number was a little over 9 lakh. “The number of foreign tourists in the state has been increasing consistently from the last five years and now we want to increase it further”, said the official. When asked whether prohibition has any impact on the flow of foreign tourists in the state, the official quipped, “official figure doesn’t suggest that”.
