India’s finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her maiden budget made a slew of announcements in the travel and tourism space. Here are the key points from the budget announcement:

• Development of 17 iconic tourism destinations to improve the influx of domestic and foreign tourists.
• Budget allocation of Rs 1.05 lakh crore for this purpose.
• Focus on the promotion of India’s tribal heritage and traditional culture, thereby generating revenue for the different tribal communities of our country.
• A digital repository to be developed where photos, videos, folk songs and documents related to the place of origin, evolution, architecture, lifestyle, education background, folk dances, traditional art and many other anthropological features of the tribal groups in India are stored.
• Promotion of the use of National Common Mobility Card standards (earlier launched by Prime Minister Modi) for commuters to pay for several types of transport charges including toll tax, metro, parking charges across the country. This is slated to increase local tourism. This will also simplify the process of cross-border payments made.
• With regard to cargo movement, the significance on the need to build the country’s inland waterways has been stressed. This will shift the cargo transportation model from the rail and road-based cargo to rivers, besides boosting tourism, particularly coastal tourism. A point in case is the Varanasi Haldia route for river cruises to offer inland waterways connectivity.