New Delhi: After highlighting its exotic beaches, spectacular temples and historic monuments, tourism authorities plan to draw visitors to sample the clean air and simple life of rural India.
Working with the United Nations Development Program, the Tourism Ministry has identified 36 villages across 20 states in the country where visitors can enjoy life's simple pleasures in a rural setting.
The plan to promote rural tourism would create jobs in the villages and encourage villagers to clean up their surroundings.
It is also expected to give a boost to handmade crafts and traditional art forms.
The rural India tourism promotion scheme is already being implemented in the eastern state of Bihar, where village women are being trained to act as tourist guides and to host visitors at their homes. Four villages in Bihar have been identified under the scheme.
Although the villages have piped water and electricity, in many ways people's lifestyles have not changed with most of them engaged in growing crops and poultry farming.
The scheme also includes a program under which high school and college students from cities and towns could spend some days in a village, exposing them to the lifestyles and culture of rural India.
Common pursuits of the villagers, such as angling, gardening or weaving cloth, would be additional attractions for visitors.
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