Inclusive ecotourism projects piloted in Uttarakhand, India

This is the first step toward Swadesh Dar­shan, a cent­ral gov­ern­ment scheme to boost tour­ism through­out the coun­try by link­ing the sec­tor with vil­la­gers’ livelihoods.

In the first stage the five cir­cuits would be developed around Forest Rest Houses (FRH) while ensur­ing that vil­lages loc­ated in and around the cir­cuits are offered oppor­tun­it­ies for employ­ment, busi­ness, and/or income supplementation.

Forest Min­is­ter Dr Harak Singh Rawat said Uttarakhand state was a hub of reli­gious tour­ism but it had not been able to devel­op as an eco­tour­ism destination.

“Con­sid­er­ing the nat­ur­al and scen­ic beauty of our state there exists huge poten­tial for devel­op­ing Uttarakhand as a hub of eco­tour­ism activ­it­ies,” he said.

Uttarakhand Eco-Tour­ism Cor­por­a­tion Man­aging Dir­ect­or Anup Malik said: “The basic object­ive of the cor­por­a­tion is to link tour­ism with the live­li­hood of locals.

“We have taken first steps towards it by final­ising the five cir­cuits, each of which will be liked with Forest Rest Houses (FRH).

“We will seek funds for the devel­op­ment of this mod­el from Swadesh Darshan.”

Under Swadesh Dar­shan, the cent­ral gov­ern­ment will provide fund­ing for infra­struc­ture — includ­ing bio-toi­lets — capa­city build­ing of staff and loc­als, and find­ing new ways to con­nect people with tour­ism activities.

Full story at Hindus­tan Times and The Tribune.

What is Swadesh Darshan?

Accord­ing to the Press Inform­a­tion Bur­eau of Indi­a’s Min­istry of Tour­ism:

“Under the Swadesh Dar­shan scheme, thir­teen them­at­ic cir­cuits have been iden­ti­fied for devel­op­ment namely: North-East India Cir­cuit, Buddhist Cir­cuit, Him­alay­an Cir­cuit, Coastal Cir­cuit, Krishna Cir­cuit, Desert Cir­cuit, Tri­bal Cir­cuit, Eco Cir­cuit, Wild­life Cir­cuit, Rur­al Cir­cuit, Spir­itu­al Cir­cuit, Ramay­ana Cir­cuit and Her­it­age Circuit.

“Under the PRASAD scheme thir­teen sites have been iden­ti­fied for devel­op­ment, namely: Amrit­sar, Ajmer, Dwaraka, Math­ura, Varanasi, Gaya, Puri, Amara­vati, Kan­chipuram, Vel­lankanni, Kedarnath, Kamakhya and Patna.

“Under the ‘PRASAD’ scheme the focus is on devel­op­ment and beau­ti­fic­a­tion of the iden­ti­fied pil­grim­age des­tin­a­tions. Where­as, in the ‘Spir­itu­al Cir­cuit’ iden­ti­fied under the Swadesh Dar­shan scheme, the thrust is on devel­op­ment of par­tic­u­lar them­at­ic cir­cuit con­sist­ing of vari­ous religious/spiritual des­tin­a­tion in a State and Uni­on Territory.”

Both of the schemes were launched in Janu­ary 2015.