Foreign tourists have nothing to do with Buddhist shrines

While the Orissa government has set up Buddhist circuit comprising Lalitgiri, Ratnagiri, Udayagiri and Langudi Hills and has been investing huge money for the overall development of these renowned shrines to attract more tourists, ironically, not a single foreign tourist has reported to have visited any of these shrines during 2006, according to government reports.

While the Buddhist shrines in the state come next to Puri and Konark as one of the major tourist destinations, generally the overseas tourists prefer to visit these three places. Even the Buddhists move in to Lalitgiri, Ratnagiri, Udayagiri and Langudi Hills in large numbers.

But, while the state government claims to have invested huge money for the development of these Buddhist shrines, on the other hand, it says that there is not a single tourist visiting these shrines. This can, under no uncertain terms, be described as sheer unfortunate for the state.
Going by the tourists’ inflow statistics maintained by the state government, not a single tourist has visited any of these Buddhist shrines during the year 2006.

On the other hand, the tourists have visited Puri, Konark, Bhubaneswar, Gopalpur, Taptapani, Chilika, Sambalpur, Rourkela, Ghatagan, Similipal, Chandipur, Cuttack, Paradip, Koraput, Jayapur, Angul and Kapilas during 2006. While a total of 52,39,896 tourists had visited the state in 2006, a total of 39,141 overseas tourists had visited the state in the same year.

The state government has claimed that the number of tourists have gone up in the state.
As per the statistics, in 2004 the inflow of the foreign and inland tourists to the state was 28,817 and 41,25,536 respectively. Similarly, in 2005, the inflow of the foreign and inland tourists to the state was 33,310 and 46,32,976 respectively.

As per the statistics for the year 2006, a total of 17,74,253 tourists have visited Puri of which 14627 are foreign tourists and the rest are inland tourists. Similarly, out of a total of 12,04,383 tourists visiting Konark, 7883 are foreign tourists followed by Gopalpur with 980 foreign tourists out of a total of 30727 tourists.

The number of foreign tourists visiting other tourist sites during 2006 are, Taptapani-155, Chilika-1667, Sambalpur-264, Rourkela-419, Similipal-182, Chandipur-189, Cuttack-182, Paradip-3431, Koraput-77, Jayapur-498, Angul-108 and Kapilas-15.

While 6,52,242 tourists comprising of 15287 foreign tourists have visited Bhubaneswar
Going by the statistics, there is an average rise of 5 to 6 lakh tourists’ inflow to the state every year.

However, the apathy of the tourists to visit the Buddhist shrines in the state has come as a rude shock to the state tourism. While the state government has earmarked Rs 7.16 crore in the state budget for the development of tourist sites, it has earmarked Rs 1.51 crore for the development of Buddhist shrines.

The fact is that while none of the tourists have visited these Buddhist shrines, then why the state government has been spending so much for the development of these shrines?

source: www.pragativadi.com