Lucknow, 28 April. Ganga Expressway is expected to emerge as an important foundation to give a new direction to spiritual tourism in Uttar Pradesh. Ganga is considered the most sacred stream of faith in India and the pilgrimage sites situated on its banks have been the center of reverence for devotees for centuries. Now the Ganga Expressway will connect these religious places into a strong pilgrimage circuit. The Ganga Expressway being built from Meerut to Prayagraj will directly connect many major religious places of the state. Through this, access to important pilgrimage sites like Garhmukteshwar, Kalki Dham, Belha Devi Dham, Chandrika Devi Shakti Peeth and Triveni Sangam will become easier and faster than before.

Every year lakhs of devotees visit these places for darshan. This expressway will also provide a strong foundation to the five major spiritual corridors being developed in Uttar Pradesh. The objective of these corridors is to connect the major religious sites of the state into a systematic religious tourism network, so that devotees can visit multiple important pilgrimage sites in a single trip. Prayagraj-Vindhyachal-Kashi corridor is being considered especially important in this direction. The journey from Triveni Sangam to Vindhyachal Devi Dham and further to Kashi will be faster and easier. This corridor will become a powerful route for religious tourism connecting the major pilgrimage sites of Shakti and Shiva. Prayagraj-Ayodhya-Gorakhpur corridor will connect major places to Ram Bhakti.

From Prayagraj, it will be easy to reach Ramlala’s darshan in Ayodhya and further to Gorakhnath temple in Gorakhpur. This will develop a strong religious circuit of pilgrimages associated with the Ramayana tradition. Prayagraj-Lucknow-Naimisharanya corridor is also very important from spiritual point of view. Naimisharanya is considered to be the holy place where 88 thousand sages performed penance and many Puranas were recited. Due to better road connectivity, this area can also emerge as a major spiritual tourism centre. The Prayagraj-Rajapur-Chitrakoot corridor connecting the places to Ramayana will also get new momentum from the Ganga Expressway.

Rajapur, the birthplace of Goswami Tulsidas, and Chitrakoot, home to holy sites associated with Lord Rama’s exile, will now be more accessible to devotees. Apart from this, Prayagraj-Mathura-Vrindavan-Shuktirtha corridor will play an important role in connecting the major places to Krishna devotion. Mathura and Vrindavan are already internationally famous religious tourism centres. With better connectivity, the number of local and foreign devotees is likely to increase further. Experts believe that the Ganga Expressway has the potential to transform spiritual tourism in Uttar Pradesh from “destination to circuit”.