The Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while delivering her second Budget speech today has allocated a budget of Rs. 2500 Crore for the development of tourism in the nation. The finance minister reiterated the fact that Tourism growth is directly related to economic growth and employment generation. A total of Rs 3,100 crore has been set aside for Culture Ministry.
The Government is set to develop five archeological sites around the country and introduce museum facilities in all these destinations. The five sites include; Rakhighari in Haryana, Hastinapur in Uttar Pradesh, Dholavira in Gujarat, Shivsagar in Assam and Adichanallur in Tamil Nadu. Also, a new tribal museum will be set up in Ranchi, Jharkhand and a Maritime site will be set up in Lothal, Gujarat.
During her speech, the Finance Minster said, “Lack of trained manpower is negatively impacting the tourism sector of our country.” In terms of Foreign Exchange Earning (FEE) she added, “We have seen an increase in FEE, which has jumped from Rs. 1.75 lakh crore last year to Rs.1.88 lakh crore in Jan to Nov 2019.”
To further boost the UDAN Scheme, 100 more airports will be developed by 2024. A budget of Rs. 1.7 lakh crores has been allocated for development of transport infrastructure by 2021. Addressing the Loksabha Sitharaman said, “Air traffic in India has been growing rapidly, and the Indian aviation growth rate is more than the global average. Also, we are expecting that the air fleet size which is currently at 600 will soon go up to 1200 as we see a boost in demand.”
Further to boost the Rail Tourism segment, The Government proposes 150 new trains which will be operated under the PPP mode and will look at introducing more trains on lines of Tejas Express to connect iconic tourism destinations in the country.
The Mumbai-Delhi Expressway will be up and ready by 2023 and to further improve connectivity the Government will soon start developing the Chennai-Bengaluru Expressway.
As a new initiative the Government is also looking to develop India as a worldclass and preferred destination for Higher Education. This can be a major step as the Tourism Ministry can tap the potential of student tourism segment.
