Tripura govt to construct 51 Shaktipeeth temples on 14.22 acres of land

Agartala: As part of boosting tourism in Tripura, BJP-IPFT government has allocated 14.22 acres of land to construct a replica of 51 Shaktipeeths and the state government has already formulated a project for under Prasad scheme of the centre.

Officials here today said besides, renovating existing tourism infrastructures, several steps have been taken by the state government to attract international tourist at an affordable cost. The department of tourism has recently started a helicopter service to Devatamura hill range and Unokoti archaeological site, famous for huge-rock cut sculptures of 15th century to facilitate the aerial view of the sites,

The Shaktipeeth temples have been set up in 51 locations of Asia as per the Hindu mythology and hardly people of the country could able to see all those important temples. In this backdrop, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb has mooted the idea to construct all 51 Shaktipeeth temples in Fulkumari village of Udaipur, close to Mata Tripureswari temple ? one of the Shaktipeeth.

Out of the 51 Shaktipeeths, 38 are in India, six in Bangladesh, three in Nepal, two in Pakistan and one each in Tibet and in Sri Lanka, which is impossible for a common man to get pilgrimage of all the 51 Shaktipeeths. So, the state government has decided to construct the exact replicas of the Shaktipeeths, said Tripura tourism minister Pranajit Singharoy.

"The Tourism department has prepared a preliminary project report of Rs 44 crore for construction of the replicas of the 51 Shaktipeeths and has sent the proposal to XV Finance Commission for consideration for funding the project and hopeful we shall get the allocation," he mentioned.

He said the tourism department has introduced weekly helicopter service from this month - Tripura Hawai Safar, which is now available only on Sunday for tourists to get an aerial view of rock-cut carvings at Devatamura and Unokoti.

The government has undertaken a project to start cottages in Mandirghat of Dumbur lake and make 

all other forest guest houses open for the tourists stay, which was not available. The previous government had built more than a hundred guest house in significant locations and beautiful landscape but they were not allowed to common people for night stay.

Moreover, drinking of liquor was not allowed in the guest houses that did not encourage tourists to visit the state. Apart from that the conservative approach of communist did not even allow bar and pub though licensed hundreds of foreign liquor shops across the state, which BJP-IPFT government wanted to change and create a tourist-friendly atmosphere.

The minister said a sum of Rs 99.59 crore had been sanctioned for Tripura in the 2015-16 financial year under Swadesh Darshan Project and Rs 74.15 crore was released. However, an amount of Rs 65 crore has been sanctioned in 2018-19 fiscal year for the development of tourism in Tripura under the same project.(UNI)