Niti Aayog Identifies Dhauli and Jaugada In Odisha For Developing Them As Integrated Buddhist Circuits

Bhubaneswar, July 6: The Niti Aayog has identified Dhauli and Jaugada in Odisha among some sites in the country to be developed as Buddhist circuits to attract overseas travellers under the ‘spiritual tourism’ initiative. These two places are known for Ashokan rock and pillar edicts.

The integrated Buddhist circuits will serve the dual objective of getting tourists, especially from the Buddhist countries and, secondly, to give a kick to the tourism sector hit hard by the covid pandemic. 

The Niti Aaayog report states that the tourism sector’s contribution to total employment and total exports registered a decline of 1.5 per cent and 3.3 per cent respectively in the wake of the pandemic.

“Against this backdrop, it is imperative for countries to adopt innovative approaches to boost and promote different segments of tourism such as niche tourism, wellness tourism, adventure tourism and spiritual tourism. Given the fact that India has been recognized as a destination for spiritual tourism for ages for both domestic and international tourists, we must unleash the potential of spiritual tourism,” said the apex think tank of the government in its report. 

The potential of Buddhist tourism, it underlined, may be explored as India is known as the ‘Land of the Buddha’ as Gautam Buddha founded Buddhism about 2,500 years ago in this region.

The other sites identified for development as Buddhist circuits are the famous rock edicts of Girnar (Gujarat), Sopara (Maharashtra), Sannati (Karnataka) and Yerragudi (Andhra Pradesh) & Dhauli, Jaugada. 

The Niti Aayog report has suggested wooing tourists, in particular, from countries such as China which has 20 crore Buddhists. At present, only 20,000 to 40,000 from there visit India. Arrivals to India from Buddhist-dominated countries comprised a mere 0.005 per cent of all Buddhist adherents.

India, as a matter of fact, attracts 1.2 per cent of the global tourist traffic. Spain takes the top spot attracting 5.7 per cent of the total traffic, USA (5.4 per cent), China (4.5 per cent), UK (2.7 per cent) and Thailand (2.7 per cent).