BHUBANESWAR: As announced by Union Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw, Shri Jagannath circuit train is all set to start its journey from January 25 as part of the ambitious ‘Bharat Gaurav’ initiative covering prominent pilgrimage of four states including Odisha. Passengers will visit temples and heritage sites while travelling through the pilgrimage cities of Varanasi, Puri, and Gaya. Under the ‘Dekho Apna Desh’ initiative, it will promote domestic tourism.
Coupled with a modern state of the art AC rake, the tourist train will start from Delhi Safdarjung Railway station on January 25 and return on February 1 after its eight-day tour. Tourists will also have options to board/ de-board the train at Ghaziabad, Aligarh, Tundla, Etawah, Kanpur and Lucknow stations.The fully air-conditioned tourist train will be covering some of the prominent pilgrimage and heritage destinations of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha.
The Bharat Gaurav tourist train tour has its first stop at Varanasi, where tourists will visit Kashi Vishwanath temple and corridor along with the Ganga ghat and Arti. After Varanasi, the train will move to Jasidih railway station in Jharkhand and tourists will proceed to visit Baidyanath dham Jyotirlinga temple.
The train will then depart from Jasidih to Puri where a stay for two nights will be arranged for tourists in the hotels. While at Puri, tourists will visit Jagannath temple, golden beach, Sun temple at Konark and temples of Bhubaneswar. After Puri, Gaya will be the last destination where the visit of Vishnupad temple will be covered during the tour. The train will return back to Delhi on the 8th day of its journey. Freshly cooked vegetarian meals will be served to the passengers.
A statement issued by IRCTC said, Indian Railways is providing 33 per cent concession for promotion of rail tourism under Bharat Gaurav scheme. Packages offered are at an economical rate starting from `17,655 per person, which will be an all inclusive tour package including hotel stay among others.