PRASAD – Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual Augmentation Drive

PRASAD – Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual Augmentation Drive is a scheme launched by the Ministry of Tourism. The scheme focuses on development and beautification of the identified pilgrimage destinations whereas in the ‘Spiritual Circuit’ identified under the Swadesh Darshan Scheme, the thrust is on development of particular thematic circuit consisting of various religious/spiritual destination in a State and Union Territory. As many as 13 thematic circuits and 13 pilgrimage sites/destinations each have been identified by Ministry of Tourism (MOT) under the new Plan Scheme Swadesh Darshan and National Mission on Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual Augmentation Drive (PRASAD) respectively. Under PRASAD thirteen sites to be developed for tourist purposes include:

• Amritsar
• Ajmer
• Dwaraka
• Mathura
• Varanasi
• Gaya
• Puri
• Amaravati
• Kanchipuram
• Vellankanni
• Kedarnath
• Kamakhya

In pursuance to the Budget Announcements of 2014-15, both the schemes were launched in January 2015. The projects sanctioned under the schemes are generally commissioned in 18 to 36 months. The two initiatives, along with Zonal Cultural Centres (ZCCs), were launched to achieve 1 per cent share of international tourist arrivals by 2016-17 from the present 0.68 per cent. Both the schemes are under implementation in mission mode and aim at developing world-class tourism related infrastructure. The main objective of PRASAD is to augment religious and spiritual tourism within the country. As a part of mission strategy of PARSAD, religious destinations that have potential to be show-cased as first tourism hot spots are identified and infrastructure is developed on a priority basis.

In the initial phase, 12 cities, which are also part of HRIDAY scheme, namely Amritsar, Ajmer, Amaravati, Dwaraka, Gaya, Kanchipuram, Kedarnath, Kamakhya, Mathura, Puri, Varanasi and Vellankani have been taken up.As a part of the scheme, theme based tourism circuits are identified for infrastructure development across the country. Theme Based Tourist Circuit (TBTC) are, in effect, will be showcased as a holidaymaker circuit around a range of themes like religion, culture and ethnicity. A TBTC could be embedded in to a state or could be developed as a regional circuit covering a large area in a state or union territory (UT). Prominent Projects sanctioned under PRASAD are mentioned as follows:

Projects Under PRASAD Scheme