Government sets up two committees to develop religious tourism destinations

NEW DELHI: Ahead of UP elections, the culture ministry has set up two national committees for the Ramayana and Krishna circuits, bringing in religious leaders, spiritual gurus, educationists associated with RSS-backed organisations and a journalist. The teams were set up last week to advise the government on developing the two circuits as religious tourism destinations.

The Ramayana Circuit National Committee will be chaired by Ram Avtar Sharma, who heads the Shri Ram Sanskritik Shodh Sansthan Nyas. The five-member committee also has on board Vijay Kaushal Ji Maharaj, known for his rendition of the Ram Katha. Akhilesh Gumastha, an orthopedic specialist from Jabalpur who has penned ‘Ramayan, The hymns of Himalaya’, journalist Rahul Sinha of Zee News and Gopeshwar Tripathi, who is described as a social activist. Sinha told ET that he had written extensively on Ramayana and that he had not yet been officially intimated of the nomination.

The Krishna circuit will be chaired by Satya Prakash Mangal, who heads a chartered accountancy firm and has taken interest in developing the Govardhan Hill off Mathura.

Ramendera Singh of RSS-backed Vidya Bharti Sanskriti Shiksha Sansthan, Baba Satyanarayana Dasa of Jiva Institute of Vaishnava Studies, Krishan Dayal of Mathurabased charity Kalyanam Karoti, Gopeshwar Nath Chatrurvedi, who worked on reducing pollution in Yamuna, and Padnaam Goswami are the other members.

The two religious circuits that will map all major sites associated with the two deities and develop them as religious tourism destinations are expected to find considerable resonance in poll bound UP. The Ramayana circuit is expected to stretch from Nepal to Rameshwaram and Sri Lanka. The Krishna circuit will move from Mathura to Dwarka at one end and to Arunachal Pradesh on the other, sources said. The UP government has also been asked to send in proposals.

Culture minister Mahesh Sharma said people from social and cultural organisations have been brought in to guide the bureaucracy on the two religious circuits. “These people have done deep studies on Lord Rama and Lord Krishna. These will be advisory bodies and we may later add more people to these committees,” Sharma told ET.