Winter pilgrimage now a 12-month event instead of just six: Uttarakhand CM

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami announced the state's winter pilgrimage initiative has been extended to a year-round event.

Taking to X, CM Dhami wrote, "Under the guidance of the respected Prime Minister @narendramodi ji, our double engine government has started the winter pilgrimage. Now the pilgrimage in Uttarakhand is being conducted for the entire 12 months instead of 6 months."

The move comes as part of a broader strategy to increase the state's tourism and promote spiritual travel throughout the year. The winter pilgrimage, which was previously limited to the colder months, now allows devotees to visit the Char Dham temples in all seasons.

"Devotees are getting spiritual experience by visiting the winter seat of Char Dham and at the same time, in view of the winter season, the number of tourists is also increasing at various tourist places in the state," Dhami said.

He further wrote that the initiative would not only benefit religious tourism but also create significant local employment opportunities.

"Through this visionary initiative of the Prime Minister, on the one hand, travel is being conducted throughout the year in the state and on the other hand, local people are also getting new employment opportunities," Dhami added.

Meanwhile, CM Dhami launched various digital projects developed by the Department of Information Technology and NIC at the Secretariat.

The Chief Minister said that in the present times, to make public services more efficient, faster and inclusive in the digital age and to meet the challenges of cybersecurity and data security, ITDA and NIC have jointly developed various online platforms by assimilating new technology so that the general public can easily get various types of services on a single platform on the lines of All in One.

He said that the website of all the departments built in the S3WaaS (Secure, Scalable and Sugamya Website as a Service) framework will prove to be a milestone in terms of cybersecurity.

The Chief Minister said that it is important that ITDA in the state has been made AUA (Authentication User Agency) - KUA (Key User Agency) by UIDAI. After this, services related to Aadhaar authentication and E-KYC can be provided through portals developed by various departments of the state, such as UCC, Virtual Registry, etc.