Centre earmarks Rs 5.8K crore for eco and spiritual tourism

NEW DELHI: With the major thrust on eco and spiritual tourism, the tourism ministry has released nearly Rs 5,800 crores for infrastructure development and improvement of facilities at places, especially those related to spiritualism, thronged by tourists under various schemes in the last eight years; since the formation of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led Government at the Centre.

According to officials, funds are being released to states and central agencies mainly under Swadesh Darshan, Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual, Heritage Augmentation Drive (Prashad) and tourism infrastructure development schemes.

According to the details tabled by the union tourism minister ministry, G Kishan Reddy in Rajya Sabha during the recently concluded Parliament session, a maximum of Rs 4,599 crores were released under the Swadesh Darshan Scheme (SDS), which is for the development theme based circuits -northeast, coastal, wildlife, desert, eco, heritage, spiritual, Buddhist, Ramayana, Himalayan, and Krishna.

The ministry has sanctioned financial assistance of Rs 687 crores under the ‘tourism infrastructure development (TFD) scheme’ for different projects to attract tourists such as the illumination of heritage buildings.