Religious tourism gets a boost in UP this year
Lucknow: Promoting religious tourism in Uttar Pradesh through building the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Buddhist circuits and development of temple towns of the state have been the priority areas of the Yogi Adityanath-led Government of Uttar Pradesh ever since he took over as the chief minister of the state for the first time in 2017 and the year 2022 saw a lot of work done in this regard.
The Yogi Government not only paid attention to providing better connectivity through road, rail and air networks, but also developed the temple towns of state through building infrastructure, providing civic amenities, multi-level parking, tourist facilitation centres, dharmshalas, and beautifying the cities through renovation of temples, ponds, ghats and lighting arrangements etc.
As a result, the state has also witnessed significant rise in tourist footfall in the religious cities. A total of 7.35 crore tourists visited Kashi Vishwanath Dham this year against 89 lakh visitors to the temple town in 2020. Similarly, during Deepotsav in Ayodhya, around 50,000 tourists visited the temple town. Mathura and Vrindavan also received a large number of devotees during Rangotsav and Krishnotsav celebrations. With the opening of Kushinagar airport, the number of foreign tourists to Sarnath, Kushinagar and other Buddhiest sites in Uttar Pradesh has also increased.
In Kashi devotees made offerings worth Rs 100 crore in cash, 60 kg gold, 10 kg silver and 1500 kg copper and the temple administration's income increased 500 times in the last one year.
On the occasion of Dev Deepawali 2022, Kashi Vishwanath Mandir, the ghats were decorated with 10 lakh diyas and flowers, decorated cruises in the Ganga and a scintillating laser show.
