Rail Budget 2014 Introduces Special Tourist Buddhist Circuit Train

Indian Railways is the most used mode of transportation in the country. Every single day, the trains carry over 23 million passengers and connect more than 7172 stations over its 12617 functional trains. These facts define the massive scale of Indians railways. During the Rail Budget 2014 presentation, various plans and innovative schemes were announced to develop the railways of India.

Considering the importance of railways in the daily life of India, Hon’ble Minister of Railways has proposed important steps towards their progress and development in his maiden budget. The big step of this development is the launch of high speed trains, a bullet train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad and introduction of more tourist trains.

The special tourist trains however are of great importance from tourism point of view. Not only they connect the destinations and strengthen their connectivity from prominent locations, but they will also encourage tourists to travel on new Indian trains.

Under this scheme, the Railways Minister is planning to introduce special train tour packages for different pilgrim circuits. Just like India’s collage of many religions, the special packaged trains will run on identified pilgrim circuits. Say for Lord Shiva followers, the railways is planning to offer Jyotirling Circuit. Jain followers can do pan-India tour through the important shrines, etc.

Same is the case where Hon’ble Railway Minister proposed to popularize Buddhist Circuit with a special packaged train tour. This is a new initiative that will surely help millions of Buddhist devotees to pay respects to the land of Lord Buddha in India. There are numerous sites and locations in the country where Buddha – The Awakened himself stayed, travelled, preached sermons, performed miracles, etc.

Such sites are holy in the eyes of every Buddhist and a visit here brings merit to the devotees. This is the reason why millions of visitors begin their Buddhist-Pilgrimage and take inspiration from the Lord himself with a Buddhist Circuit Tour. The new launch of special Buddhist Circuit package train will not only strengthen the connectivity between the Buddhist regions of India, but will also consolidate the entire circuit in a single journey over rail. This is definitely a great initiative that is being welcomed by the Buddhist community in India and the world over.

But, this is not the first time where special Buddhist circuit train is being introduced in India. The premier Buddhist Train, Mahaparinirvan Express was launched seven years ago on March 28, 2007 to give pilgrims a great opportunity to travel through Bodhgaya, Varanasi, Kushinagar and Lumbini.

Since its launch, the train has catered to millions of tourists from different countries of the world during their Buddhist-Pilgrimage. Needless to know, this train has brought together like-minded people on a same platform of exploring Buddhist destinations. During this, the pilgrims gain the merit of completing the journey of a lifetime comfortably over the period of eight days. You can also book a special Buddhist-Train Tour during September 2014 - March 2015 easily. All these options are given to the pilgrims so that they can fulfill their spiritual quest of life and visit the sites important to Buddha’s life.