Tourist flow goes up in Bihar

The initiatives taken by Bihar government to boost the sagging tourism sector has begun to pay dividends as the number of foreign tourists in the state has gone up by nearly six times in three years.

The number of foreign tourists visiting Bihar has gone up from 63,321 in 2005-06 to 3,56,446 in 2008-09, which was nearly six times, state's tourism minister Ram Pravesh Rai said.

Rai said steady and healthy growth in the number of foreign and domestic tourists was the result of state's NDA government's concerted efforts to create a conducive environment and its commitment to provide better security to them.

"People (tourists) are now feeling safe and secured in the NDA regime and that's why they are visiting Bihar in big numbers", Rai said.

The number of foreigners visited the state in 2005-06 was 63,321 which rose to 94,446 in 2006-07. Similarly, it went up to 1,77,362 in 2007-08 and was almost doubled in the very next year to touch 3,56,446 foreigners in 2008-09. More than 1.14 lakh foreigners have visited till the end of April in the current fiscal.

Similarly, there has been steady rise in the domestic tourists also, except in 2007-08 when it showed a little decline. The number of domestic tourists, which was 86.87 lakh in 2005-06, was hovering over one crore in subsequent years and touched its all time high to 1.21 crore in 2008-09.

Realising the huge potential of tourism in Bihar, which was home to a number of Buddhist, Jain and Sikh shrines, the NDA government increased budgetary allocation to tourism department after coming to power in November, 2005.

The government made a substantial allocation from a meagre Rs 7.43 crore in 2005-06 to Rs 29.78 crore in the current financial year (2009-10) which was almost a four-time raise, the minister said.

Rai said the department has formulated a tourism policy to provide impetus to the sector which has also been accorded the status of industry by the state government.

With a view to making travel more convenient for all tourists including foreigners, steps were underway for broadening and strengthening roads linking to Buddhist, Jain, Sikh religious circuits, official sources said.

Talks were also on with several aviation companies for increasing the frequency of international flights connecting Bodh Gaya airport.

To woo the foreigners, the government has decided to build a three and five star rated hotels at tourist spots such as Patna, Rajgir and Bodh Gaya on public-private partnership (PPP) model.

Tourism Police Force would be deployed at Gaya, Bodh Gaya, Rajgir, Nalanda, Vaishali in the first phase and subsequently the force would be stationed at all the tourist sites.

The government was committed to develop tourist sites at Vaishali, Jehanabad, Maner, Kesariya, Lauria, Nandangarh, to attract more tourists, the minister said.

The government has plans to launch courses in travel and tourism, hospitality, hotel management, catering guide, tour and travel operator with assistance from Human Resources Development department to promote greater expertise for improved management of the tourism sector. link