With an aim to cater to the growing number of tourists to pilgrim sites, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has come up with three new tourism products for the State.

Beginning next month, IRCTC will launch tour packages to holy places of Shirdi Dham and Shani Singhnapur and Dakshin Bharat Yatra from Bhubaneswar.

The Dakshin Bharat Darshan Yatra which will commence on March 29 will be a 10-day affair. For the tour, the cost for Standard option is Rs  12,649 per person and Rs 16,500 per person for Comfort.

The comprehensive tour package includes train journey by sleeper or 3 AC class, hotel accommodation, road transportation, meals, sightseeing, tour escorts and security arrangement. The train will cover cultural, heritage and pilgrimage destinations of Puri, Tirupati, Rameswaram, Madurai and Kanyakumari and the journey will start from Bhubaneswar.

Besides, considering a large number of devotees visiting Shridi, IRCTC has decided to add three coaches for its tours to Shridi Dham, Shani Singhnapur and Nasik. Shirdi Dham and Shani Singhnapur-Nasik Yatra will commence from Bhubaneswar railway station on March 11 and March 25 and end in five and six days respectively.

“Devotees from Bhubaneswar would be taken to Shirdi not on a special tourist train but either by the Bhubaneswar LTT Super Fast Express or Puri LTT Super Fast Express.

Every passenger willing to go to Shirdi would get a confirmed ticket and would be taken up to Manmad railway station. From Manmad, they would be taken to Shirdi Dham by AC cars via road route.

They would also stay in an air-conditioned hotel,” Kranti P Swarkar, Manager-Tourism, IRCTC, told mediapersons on Tuesday.

An autonomous unit under the Ministry of Railways, IRCTC had signed an MoU with Odisha Tourism Development Corporation (OTDC) two years back to explore tourism potential of the State.

The IRCTC had then floated 10 rail tour packages connecting Bhubaneswar with a host of enchanting tourist destinations in the country.

Source