Pakistan woos Indian pilgrims with religious tourism

Islamabad, Sep 4 (IANS) With more and more Indian pilgrims visiting Pakistan, the authorities are now focusing on promoting religious tourism and have identified 32 temples, gurdwaras and Sufi shrines for improvement.

'The Tourism and Resorts Development Department (TRDD) has planned to build hotels to promote religious tourism across Punjab. This is because of the increasing number of religious pilgrims visiting the Sufi shrines, gurdwaras and Hindu temples,' Daily Times Tuesday quoted an official of the department as saying.

Toward this end, a pilot project will be launched to provide 'standard accommodation and affordable facilities' at Nankana Sahib, the Katasraj temple complex, Sufi saint Baba Farid's shrine, and at Tilla Jogian.

Tilla Jogian is a 3,200-foot-high hill in Jhelum district that for thousands of years was a place of sun worship for Hindus because the sun can be seen here early and sets much later due to its height. Tilla Jogian in Punjabi means the hill of saints.

A comprehensive strategy had been evolved to improve service delivery for tourists to all the 32 religious places, the official said.

The effort would be to open new tourist sites in the province with the cooperation of district governments, the official added.

The department is also making efforts to streamline Punjab's hotel industry by formulating new rules and regulations for the registration of hotels with the department to help tourists.

Public-private partnership schemes were being envisaged to improve room capacity and to involve more stakeholders in Punjab's tourism industry.

The official said TRDD had sufficient funds to spend on new tourist sites and had written to all district coordination officers to identify and develop new sites across Punjab.