Prime Minister Narendra Modi will flag off world’s longest river cruise ‘Ganga Vilas’ and will inaugurate Tent City at Varanasi on Friday via video conferencing, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.
The MV Ganga Vilas will set out from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh and cruise 3,200 kilometres across Bangladesh and 27 river systems before arriving in Dibrugarh in Assam.
“MV Ganga Vilas has three decks, 18 suites on board with a capacity of 36 tourists, with all the luxury amenities. The maiden voyage has 32 tourists from Switzerland signing up for the entire length of the journey,” it said.
The MV Ganga Vilas cruise is designed to exhibit the best of the nation to the globe.
“The 51 days cruise is planned with visits to 50 tourist spots including World Heritage Sites, National Parks, River Ghats, and major cities like Patna in Bihar, Sahibganj in Jharkhand, Kolkata in West Bengal, Dhaka in Bangladesh and Guwahati in Assam,” the PMO said.
With the inauguration of this service, the enormous untapped potential of river cruise will be unleashed, supporting the PM’s efforts to increase river cruise tourism. This will usher in a new era of river cruise tourism for India.
To capitalise on the tourism potential in the area, Tent City has been conceptualised along the banks of the River Ganga.
“The project has been developed opposite to city ghats which will provide accommodation facilities and cater to the increased tourists influx in Varanasi, especially since the inauguration of Kashi Vishwanath Dham,” the PMO said.
According to a statement by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), the prime minister will also inaugurate and lay the foundation stones for several other inland waterways projects worth more than ₹1000 crores during the event.