By Express News Service
BHUBANESWAR: As many tourist places in Odisha remain neglected due to lack of patronage from the Government, the sector having unlimited potential for employment generation, has failed to grow as expected. Though measures have been initiated by the State Government to promote tourist places of Odisha, within the country and outside, the affect seems to be minimum as is evident from the footfall of tourists.
Minister of State for Tourism and Culture Ashok Chandra Panda, however, said the State has embarked on an aggressive marketing strategy to promote and position Odisha as a preferred tourist destination in the country and world at large. For promotion of Odisha tourism, electronic media campaigns have been undertaken, he added.
For safety and security of tourists visiting the State, eight tourist police cells have been opened at important tourist places such as Puri, Chandrabhaga, Dhauli, Gopalpur, Nandankanan, Lingaraj Temple, Satapada and Chandipur. Besides, tourist police patrolling has been in operation on the Puri-Satapada and Puri-Konark routes, he added.
Though there has been a steady growth in the arrival of foreign and domestic tourists to the State, the number of foreign tourists has stagnated around 1 lakh. Arrival of foreign tourist to the State increased from 71,417 in 2014 to 1,00,014 in 2017 while the domestic tourist arrival went up to 1,40,11,229 in 2017 from 1,07,90,622 in 2014.
The State Government has decided to organise five trips under the ‘Baristha Nagarika Tirtha Yatra Yojana’ in 2018-19 to facilitate senior citizens in the age group of 60 to 75 to go on a pilgrimage.The first train under the scheme is proposed to be run from Rayagada and Koraput to cover Tirupati-Vellore-Kanipakam-Sree Kalhasti while the second train is scheduled from Sambalpur to Rameswar-Madurai-Trivandrum, Panda informed after a review of the achievements of the departments by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
The third train is proposed to leave from Berhampur and cover Velankani-Nagore-Brihadeswar-Srirangam, the Minister said and added that the fourth train scheduled to depart from Bhubaneswar for Haridwar-Rishikesh-Delhi. The fifth train will leave from Balasore to coverAjmer-Agra-FatehpurSikri-Mathura-Brindavan. The scheme, launched in 2016 has taken 1981 senior citizens to different places for pilgrimage inside the country. So far an expenditure of `12.25 crore has been incurred under the scheme by the Government while a provision of `11 crore has been made in 2018-19.
