Joy Roy Choudhury – Kolkata
In a major development, which will have a long-term impact on the development of tourism in the small Northeastern state of Tripura, the Union Railways Minister, Suresh Prabhu recently flagged off the inaugural broad-gauge weekly rail services between Agartala, the state capital and Anand Vihar Terminal in New Delhi. With this, Agartala also became the third state capital in the Northeast to be connected by a direct train with the national capital after Guwahati and Itanagar. Four Northeastern state capitals – Shillong, Kohima, Imphal and Aizwal – are however yet to come on the railway map.
Speaking to Express TravelWorld on the development, Mrinal Kanti Das, assistant director, Tripura Tourism, Govt of Tripura said, “Over the years, many tourists from the north and specially those having their friends and families in Tripura have evinced keen interest to visit our state, but lack of proper rail connectivity deterred them from visiting the state. Till now, they had to rely only upon flights but now budget tourists can easily travel to Tripura and other places of interest in the region by train.”
“We are hopeful that domestic tourists from the northern states would now travel to Tripura. We are expecting a significant jump in inbound tourist arrivals. We would certainly highlight this development in a major way in the coming days to attract,” he added.
The northeast is a traveller’s delight and has high scope for the tourism industry. The region has tremendous potential to become a tourism hub. Rich biodiversity and diverse cultures in the northeastern states provide huge potential for the tourism industry. The region offers almost all kind of tourism activities like trekking, mountaineering, Buddhist circuit tours, jungle safaris, cultural tours, hiking, rafting, cave tours. It is also famous for its ethnic cultural diversity. Tripura, one of the smallest states in the country acceded to the Indian Union in 1949. Almost 60 per cent of the total area is under hills and forests. The state is endowed with variety of tourist attractions including monuments, wild-life sanctuaries, forests, water bodies, ancient palaces, temples and Buddhist religious sites. The handloom and handicraft products of the state are also widely acclaimed. “Ujjayanta Palace, Jampui Hills, Sepahijala Wildlife Sanctuary, Pilak, Unakoti, Neermahal, Tripura Sundari Temple are some of the important tourist attractions of the state, which we are promoting aggressively,” Das added.