Tourist amenities at religious sites yet to be completed: Parl panel

The department-related parliamentary standing committee noted that the rate of progress in these projects stood at 10%

Development of tourist amenities in religious sites like Puri’s Jagannath Mandir, Uttarakhand’s Kedarnath Dham, and Assam’s Kamakhya Temple is among 45 projects across 25 states and UTs which are yet to be completed months after they received sanction by Centre under a scheme launched for the promotion of spiritual places, a Parliamentary panel has found.

In some cases, the delay has crossed 44 months, while in others the date of completion passed 4 years ago.

The department-related parliamentary standing committee on transport, tourism and culture, headed by YSRCP Rajya Sabha MP V Vijayasai Reddy, has noted that the rate of progress in several of these projects stood at 10 per cent. These projects were sanctioned under the Pilgrimage Rejuvenation And Spiritual Heritage Augmentation Drive (PRASHAD) scheme, launched by the Modi government in 2015 to develop tourist amenities in over 73 religious sites across 30 states and UTs.

This included the development of pilgrimage amenities at Gujarat’s Dwarka and Somnath, where the projects were delayed by 35 and 15 months respectively. In Dwarka’s case, the state government said that the delay was due to clearances from the Archaeological Survey of India and Railway, while in the case of Somnath temple, the delay was because of the tendering and design finalisation by implementing agency and due to coordination between the state government and temple trust.

Apart from these 45 projects, the ministry launched a new category for smaller projects, identifying 33 projects in 10 states.

In Assam’s Kamakhya Temple as well as Bihar’s Patnasahib, too, only 10 per cent of the respective projects were completed, and the delay was by 33 and 44 months, respectively. Other projects include Madhya Pradesh’s Omkareshwar Temple, Kerala’s Guruvayur temple, Maharashtra’s Trimbakeshwar and J&K’s Hazratbal.

The committee has also pulled up the ministry of tourism for underutilisation of budget — 89.95 per cent in 2020-21, 82.89 per cent in 2021-22 and 34.56 per cent till January 31, 2023 — and said that the budgetary allocation of the Ministry has been halved at the Revised Estimates stage, and even that Budget has remained unutilised.

"Against the projected demand of Rs 2675.01 crores, the net allocation made for the Ministry of Tourism under Demand is Rs 2400 crores. The shortfall is Rs 275.01 crores," the panel said. "The shortfall is mainly in the major schemes of the Ministry … Swadesh Darshan and PRASHAD and in promotion and publicity, both domestic and overseas."