Thai Airlines to fly from Bangkok to Varanasi weekly

In a major boost to the tourist inflow in the Buddhist circuit in UP, Thai Airlines will start weekly flights from Bangkok to Varanasi from October 15 next year.

The civil aviation ministry has also favoured the proposal of linking Varanasi with the Thai capital. A team of the civil aviation officials of the Thailand government will visit Lucknow next week.

"It's a good beginning and a major breakthrough for the state," said UP's Tourism Minister Kokab Hamid here today

"With the beginning of the Thai Air flights, many other Buddhist countries like Japan, South Korea and Sri Lanka may follow suit in view of the huge tourist inflow from there to the Buddhist circuit," he added.

"UP would also like to involve the Bihar government for promoting tourism in the Buddhist circuit as BodhGaya is located in the eastern state," said the minister, adding that there was need for greater inter-state co-ordination between UP and Bihar for harnessing the potential of tourist traffic in the Buddhist circuit.

He said in view of the huge potential for tourist traffic, the state government had completed the first phase of the development of the infrastructure development work in the Buddhist circuit spread over Kapilvastu, Shravasti, Sarnath, Sakinsa, Kaushambi and Kushinagar.

"The Japan Bank of International Co-operation (JBIC) has also released the second tranche of the loan for the development of the Buddhist circuit in UP; it has released Rs 680 crore for the second phase," said the minister. He said the JBIC had given in-principle approval for another Rs 380 crore for the development schemes on the Buddhist circuit.

The minister said the foremost task for the UP government was to get this money released from the Union tourism ministry. He said the issue was likely to be cleared soon by the Centre.

He said in recent years UP had taken rapid strides in attracting tourists. "Last year, as many as 9.41 crore tourists visited UP, which included 11.74 lakh foreign tourists and the rest 9.29 crore domestic tourists and the state earned Rs 5,035 crore of foreign exchange and Rs 1,178 crore on account of the luxury tax," said the minister.

Earlier today the tourism minister laid the foundation of 42 schemes of his department for the development and providing additional facilities at the tourist bungalows, temples and bathing ghats at rivers for the pilgrims.

The schemes will be taken up in the districts lying under the Lucknow and Kanpur divisions. The total cost of the schemes is Rs 4 crore.