Chandigarh, Sep 27 (FN Agency) Haryana Governor Bandaru Dattatreya has said that India’s tourism sector will get a big boost with the launch of Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday. Thanking the Prime Minister for launching ABDM, Dattatreya said that “health tourism has a huge potential in our, which will get a big boost from ABDM.” Extending his congratulations and best wishes to the people of Haryana on the World Tourism Day, Dattatraya said that the youths should be aligned to the opportunities in the field of medical, health, rural, spiritual, religious and highway tourism, which will enable them to be job givers, and not job seekers! He said the theme of this year’s World Tourism Day is ‘Tourism for Inclusive Growth’ which justifies a number of initiatives taken by the Central and state governments to develop the tourism sector so that more and more possibilities for employment are created in the tourism sector, thus adding a great amount of value to the national economy.
The Governor said that India is gifted with a unique natural diversity, which is remarkably rare in the world. Every season has something unique for the tourists in our country, thanks to which a large number of tourists from all over the world come to India to enjoy the different types of weather. He said that there has been a qualitative increase in the number of tourists from 2016 to 2018. Similarly, the contribution of the tourism sector in GDP has also increased. The tourism sector has become the largest service industry in the country, valued at over 200 billion dollars. The tourism sector is an important employer as well. The contribution of tourism to employment is 8.7 per cent. Dattatraya said that the tourism sector suffered a lot due to the corona pandemic in the last one and a half years, but the Central and Haryana governments have prepared a roadmap to compensate for this loss. Digital revolution has been started to promote historical, medical, heritage, cultural, spiritual tourism in the country. E-visa facilities have been provided by the Central government to the citizens of 171 countries all over the world.
Along with this, a pilgrimage program has also been started under the ‘Swadesh Darshan’ scheme. Schemes worth Rs 622 crore have been prepared to promote tourism in 24 states of the country. New start-ups are being launched. On the lines of the Central government, Haryana has also started developing Kurukshetra as a tourist destination. For this, development works have been started with Rs 97 crore released by the Government of India. The work is also going on for the development of various circuits like Madhavgarh-Narnaul Circuit, Shri Krishna Circuit to promote tourism in the state.