The Buddhist tourism circuit in India is getting a new push with the luxury tourist train run by IRCTC, the Mahaparinirvana Express, expanding its run to touch Buddhist sites in Odisha from Jan 20 besides those in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. 

The move is to meet the growing demand by pilgrims, especially from countries like Sri Lanka in South Asia as well East and Southeast Asia, to visit more places associated with the Buddha - Bhubaneswar, Lalitagiri, Khandagiri and Udayagiri. 

"The train that begins from Safdarjung in the capital now goes to Bodh Gaya, Rajgir, Nalanda, Varanasi, Sarnath, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Lumbini and Sravasti in a seven-night, eight-day odyssey," Harshvardhan Singh Rawat, an official at the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), said. 

The train, which was introduced in 2007, has tariffs ranging from Rs.7,500 to Rs.34,000. 

Speaking on the margins of the Confederation of India Industry Roundtable on Indian Tourism, the IRCTC official said the government was reconsidering resuming the Chennai Buddhist shuttle that stopped in March this year. 

"We will soon put the train from Chennai back on track to cater to the surge of Buddhist pilgrims from Sri Lanka. We are working out the cost of the 21-day, 20-night trip that covers many more places than the Delhi train," the official said. 

The Mahaparinirvana Express, on an average, clocks 60 percent occupancy with the bulk of tourists from China, Thailand, Taiwan and other countries in the region. The official said tourists from at least 30 countries opt for train tourism in the Buddhist circuits. 

The corporation has tied up with luxury hotels at Bodh Gaya, Kushinagar, Gorakhpur and Lumbini (Nepal) to host the tourists overnight. Now the spotlight is on Odisha, where Buddhist sites had been in the shadow of the popular Puri-Konark Hindu pilgrimage tourism. 

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