By PUMMY KAUL
NEW DELHI, October 27 – What’s common between his highness the Dalai Lama, an Air-India pilgrim package and champa flowers? Nothing really. But according to minister of state for tourism Renuka Chowdhury, the three can together help promote the Buddhist circuit, bring in those tourist dollars.
Chowdhury claimed that she had successfully persuaded Dalai Lama to promote the Buddhist circuit in the country. “The Dalai Lama will get involved in promoting the Buddhist circuit,” she told state tourism ministers at the state ‘tourism projects’ review meeting on Thursday.
Further, to ensure tourist arrivals to these sites, the tourism ministry was also in the process of working out MoUs with state-owned airlines like Air- India for introducing special pilgrim packages specifically targeted at Buddhist sites, Chowdhury said.
Chowdhury also wanted all the states to give special emphasis to floriculture in these areas and, in fact, had a ready solution to improve the flora and fauna of these sites. “I think you should plant champa trees as these can be used for worship as well even as they enhance the beauty of the place,” Chowdhury said at the meeting.
About 16 states, including Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh have been identified by the tourism ministry which can develop various Buddhist sites. In Andhra Pradesh, for instance, there are over 140 Buddhist sites spread all over the state. The ministry has sanctioned several projects for infrastructure development in most of these sites.
Taking stock of these and various state tourism projects, the minister requested the representatives of several states to expedite execution of these projects.
Determined to see speedy implementation on the development of Buddhist circuit front, Chowdhury is planning to rush a team from the Centre to oversee the pace of the development work, a task which certainly is high on her agenda.
