The Indian Railways has decided to run Suvidha special trains between Chennai to Kollam and Hyderabad to Kollam to serve the devotees at Sabarimala pilgrimage. The special trains are scheduled on different dates in the months of November, December, and January to serve the Kollam railway station which is the nearest major railway station to Sabarimala temple complex. The special fare special train from Chennai will run on 3, 5, 10, 12, 17, 19, 24, 26 and 31 in December and 2, 7, 9 and 14 of January. The train will leave Chennai central at 8.40 pm and reach the Kollam railway station on next day’s noon. The train from Hyderabad named Hyderabad-Kollam Suvidha special train (82721) will run on 17, 21, 25 and 29 of November. It will leave Hyderabad railway station at 11.55 am and reach Kollam 11.55 am next day.
In last few years railways has taken steps to exploit the potential of religious tourism. Railway launched Ramayana Express which starts from from Safdarjung railway station and takes the same route down south as that of Lord Rama, passing through Nandigram, Sitamarhi, Janakpur, Varanasi, Prayag, Shringaverpur, Chitrakoot, Nasik, Hampi, and Rameshwaram. The first train started on Ramayan circuit met with great response and generated good profit for railways. The average occupancy for normal tourist trains is 50-60 percent but the seats for the inaugural ride of the Ramayana Express on November 14, were sold within 15 days after the ride was announced on July 7. This encouraged Indian Railways to launch three more trains from Jaipur, Madurai and Rajkot on Ramayana tourist circuit.
Religious tourism is one of the most popular forms of tourism in the country, as lakhs of pilgrims visit the shrine of Vaishno Devi in Jammu every year. The Amarnath Yatra is made by millions of people every year despite all the hurdles they face in the way. Even though, religious tourism has enormous potential, previous governments have never tried to create an infrastructure for it to grow and thrive. The baggage of secularism carried out by Congress governments stopped them from encouraging Hindu religious tourism. On the other hand, they gave subsidies for Haj pilgrimage and provided state support to Christian missionaries as well. However, the fact remains that majority of the population of the country is Hindu and if Hindu religious tourism would have been promoted in the past, a billion dollars industry could have been created out of it.
Tourism in the country is a completely unexploited industry. Only some places like Taj Mahal or Gateway of India are the limelight of the industry. There are a vast number of unexplored sites of historical and religious value that are rotting in ignorance because there is lack of infrastructure to reach these destinations, while no marketing efforts are made to popularize them. India has 36 World Heritage Sites that are recognized by UNESCO as of August 2017. These are places of cultural or natural heritage as described in the UNESCO but the ‘secular’ governments of the country promoted only the likes of Taj Mahal and Lal Qila. Congress made sure that the great Hindu temples down south would never become the poster-boys of Indian tourism. But things are changing now as Modi government is giving the much needed attention to the eternally ignored Hindu shrines. Special trains to Sabarimala temple is a step in the right direction.
