In order to address the constraints faced by various religious destinations in India, including lack of infrastructure like roads, last mile connectivity, solid waste management, etc., and facilitate religious tourism, the Prime Minister of India introduced PRASAD scheme under the aegis of Ministry of Tourism, GoI.
Vision:
- To drive a national mission for rejuvenation and spiritual augmentation of important religious destinations.
- To position tourism as a major engine of economic growth and job creation.
- To provide complete tourism experience-enhancing tourist attractiveness of the religious destinations in a sustainable manner.
- To promote sustainable pilgrimage tourism in the country
- To strengthen the mechanism for bridging the infrastructure gaps at identified pilgrimage destinations and develop a monitoring mechanism for the projects in collaboration with the states/UTs and other stakeholders.
- To strengthen the measures of safety and security of pilgrims and improve the quality of tourism services.
- To create employment through the active involvement of local communities with the pro-poor approach in a sustainable and inclusive manner through the development of a ‘Responsible Tourism’ initiative.
Mission:
To identify and develop pilgrimage tourist destinations on the principles of high tourist visits, competitiveness and sustainability in an integrated manner by synergising efforts to focus on needs and concerns of all stakeholders to enrich religious/spiritual tourist experience and enhance employment opportunities.
Objectives:
- Integrated development of pilgrimage destinations in a planned prioritised and sustainable manner to provide complete religious tourism experience.
- Harness tourism for its direct and multiplier effects on employment generation and economic development.
- Follow community-based development and pro-poor tourism concept in the development of the pilgrimage destinations
- Leveraging public capital and expertise.
- Enhancing the tourist attractiveness in a sustainable manner by developing world-class infrastructure in the religious destination
- Creating awareness among the local community about the importance of tourism for them in terms of an increase in sources of income improved living standards and overall development of the area.
- Promote local arts, culture, handicrafts, cuisine, etc. to generate livelihood in the identified places.
Strategy:
- To identify religious destinations that have the potential to be showcased as world-class tourism products in consultation with the stakeholders.
- To ensure that the development of these destinations adhere to the sustainability and carrying capacity is of the destination.
- To create a framework for classifying infrastructural gaps in the identified destinations that have been major roadblocks in unlocking the potential of these places.
- To plan in an integrated manner the development of these destinations in a specific timeframe ensuring full convergence of state and central government schemes as well as private sector investments
- To identify and prioritise projects that need to be taken up through dedicated public funding immediately and to leverage the extent feasible, additional resources from voluntary funding (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiatives of Central Public sector undertakings and corporate sector.
- To promote local arts, culture, handicrafts, cuisine, etc to generate livelihood in the identified destinations
- To follow comprehensive area development approach for ensuring all the facilities required by the tourist in the identified places.
- The centrally coordinate the development process of identified projects.
