Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while presenting the Interim Budget 2024-25 in Parliament today, laid emphasis on comprehensive development of tourist centers for achieving the vision of Viksit Bharat by 2047.

The Finance Minister said that states will be encouraged to take up comprehensive development of iconic tourist centres, branding and marketing them at global scale.

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She further added that long-term interest free loans will be provided to States for financing such development on matching basis.

In order to promote comprehensive development of the centres, the Minister said that a framework for rating of the centres based on quality of facilities and services will be established.

Minister Sitharaman highlighted the fact that India’s middle class also now aspires to travel & explore; and tourism, including spiritual tourism, has tremendous opportunities for local entrepreneurship.

In continuation to this, she said that to address the emerging fervour for domestic tourism, projects for port connectivity, tourism infrastructure, and amenities will be taken up on the islands, including Lakshadweep and this will help in generating employment.

In addition to domestic tourism, India’s diversity is known to global audience. In this regard Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget speech said that the success of organizing G20 meetings in sixty places presented diversity of India to global audience and the economic strength has made the country an attractive destination for business and conference tourism.

The Minister also announced the three major railway corridor programs which are the Energy, mineral and cement corridor, Port-connectivity corridor, and the High-traffic density corridor.

The projects have been identified under the PMGatiShakti for enabling multi modal connectivity. They will improve logistics efficiency and reduce cost, she believed.

She highlighted that the Multi-prompt Economic Management over the past 10 years has complemented people centric inclusive development. All forms of infrastructure are being built in record time.