NEW DELHI: Cautioning railways against taking the tourism and pilgrimage sector “lightly”, a parliamentary panel said Thursday it was “dismayed” at the low revenue generated from luxury trains run by the national transporter.
The standing committee on railways, headed by Sudip Bandyopadhyay, in its action-taken report has come down hard on the railway ministry and said it should not only increase the budget allocation for promotion of tourism, but also keep a separate corpus for promotion of places of pilgrimage.
“The committee caution the Ministry not to take the tourism and pilgrimage sector too lightly as it may prove a hidden treasure for railways to increase revenue if explored judiciously,” it said.
Railways in its reply has said that during financial year 2016-2017, IRCTC operated 67 Bharat Darshan trips, two Aastha circuit train tours, five Buddhist special and three trips of semi-luxury trains. During 2017-2018 till December, IRCTC has operated 54 trips of Bharat Darshan, eight trips of Aastha Circuit train tours and three Buddhist special tours.
The committee said railways should provide wide publicity to the existence of such trains running through pilgrimage sites as it would “spark the wanderlust and adventure instincts of tourists”. (AGENCIES)
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