UTTARAKHAND, INDIA, April 11, 2014 (domain-b.com): With tourists from Maharashtra forming a considerable number of the total visitors to Uttarakhand, the state tourism board has begun the exercise of attracting Mumbaikars for the religious of Char Dham yatra, which is set to open for the season from next month. The pilgrimage, which starts during summer, has been popular since ancient times, as it involved difficult and arduous trekking through the hilly regions of Uttarakhand and is considered to be highly auspicious among Hindus.
The hill state, whose economy is hugely dependent on tourism, is home to Hindu holy mountain shrines of Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri, together constituting the Char Dham, which attract a large number of devotees and religious travelers every year. The Uttarakhand government is making special efforts to revive religious tourism following the death of thousands and devastation to these shrines in the flood-landslide disaster of last year, which cost the state US$200 million worth of business.
“We are in the process of rebuilding the state’s infrastructure. We are ready to begin the holy yatra from 2 May with the opening of the Yamunotri and Gangotri gates,” state tourism secretary Umakant Panwar told reporters in Mumbai. Panwar said that taking lessons from last year’s tragedy, the state plans to contain the number of visitors at any given time. To enforce the plan, the tourism department has made arrangements for mandatory biometric registration of the all the visitors. Also, each visitor will be tracked with a GPS-based monitoring system.