Bihar to ponder over formation of Tourism cabinet

PATNA: The Bihar government would explore the possibility of forming a ' tourism cabinet' on the lines of the one existing for Agriculture to spur the tourism industry - a potential revenue earner.

"We will take forward the idea of constituting a tourism cabinet combining different related departments like the one for agriculture to boost tourism potential of the state," Principal Secretary Tourism Deepak Prasad said at a workshop.

In a pioneering initiative, Bihar formed an Agriculture cabinet in 2011 combining 17 departments for comprehensive growth of farm sector.

Highlighting that Bihar is a treasure trove of history and culture having many sites of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Islam and Sikhism, Prasad said there was a need to have more "story tellers" to popularise the sites.

He said efforts would be made to tap famous personalities from the state like Bollywood actor-turned politician Shatrughan Sinha, his actor-daughter Sonakshi Sinha and more recently Shreya Singh who won silver medal in shooting in Commonwealth Games in the role of 'story tellers' like Gujarat had Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan.

Prasad was speaking at a sensitization workshop "Bed & Breakfast" scheme organised by Union Tourism ministry.