Heritage and Tourism Schemes: PRASHAD and Swadesh Darshan

The correct answer is B, Ministry of Tourism. Swadesh Darshan was launched in 2014-15 as a central sector scheme of the Ministry of Tourism, which means the entire expenditure is borne by the central government, and its purpose is the integrated development of tourist circuits built around a theme such as Buddhism, the Ramayana or the coast. Option A is wrong because the Ministry of Culture runs conservation and art promotion schemes such as the National Culture Fund and Seva Bhoj Yojana, not this one. Option C is wrong because the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs ran HRIDAY, the heritage city scheme, and runs urban missions such as AMRUT and the Smart Cities Mission. Option D is wrong because the Ministry of Home Affairs has no role in tourism circuit development.

The correct answer is C, Ministry of Urban Development, which is today called the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. HRIDAY, the Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana, was launched on 21 January 2015 to develop the old core of twelve heritage cities, dealing with water supply, sanitation, drainage, roads, street furniture and the conservation of heritage buildings in the same area. Option A is wrong because the Ministry of Tourism runs Swadesh Darshan and PRASHAD, which are often confused with HRIDAY. Option B is wrong because the Ministry of Culture handles monuments through the Archaeological Survey of India but did not run this urban scheme. Option D is wrong because the environment ministry has no part in it, though heritage city plans must respect environmental clearances.

The correct answer is B, Heritage. The scheme began in 2014-15 as PRASAD, the Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual Augmentation Drive, and was renamed in 2017 as the National Mission on Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual, Heritage Augmentation Drive. The addition of the word heritage gave the acronym its extra H, so the spelling used in current papers is PRASHAD, and the scheme now covers heritage destinations along with pilgrimage towns. Option A is wrong because housing belongs to the name of the ministry that ran HRIDAY, not to this scheme. Option C is wrong because highways are built under separate schemes of the road transport ministry. Option D is wrong because hospitality, though related to tourism, does not appear in the full form of the mission.

The correct answer is B, 12. HRIDAY covered twelve heritage cities with an outlay of five hundred crore rupees, namely Ajmer, Amaravati, Amritsar, Badami, Dwarka, Gaya, Kanchipuram, Mathura, Puri, Varanasi, Velankanni and Warangal. Several of these names also appear in the first list of the PRASHAD scheme, so the count of twelve should be learnt along with the less familiar entries Badami in Karnataka and Warangal in Telangana. Option A is wrong because eight is not the figure for any phase of the scheme. Option C is wrong because twenty is often confused with the number of cities in other urban missions. Option D is wrong because twenty-eight is the number of states of India and is placed here only as a distractor, since it has nothing to do with the list of heritage cities.

The correct answer is A, Monument Mitra. Adopt a Heritage was announced on World Tourism Day in 2017 by the Ministry of Tourism along with the Ministry of Culture and the Archaeological Survey of India, and it allows a company, trust or individual to take up a monument and pay for its drinking water, toilets, signage, lighting and other visitor facilities as part of corporate social responsibility. Such a body is called a Monument Mitra, and a revised version of the scheme was issued in 2023. Option B is wrong because Heritage Sakhi is not a term used in the scheme. Option C is wrong because Virasat Prahari is not the official name of any such role. Option D is wrong because Smarak Sevak, though it means a monument helper, is not the term in the guidelines.

The correct answer is B, 2002. Incredible India was launched by the Ministry of Tourism in 2002 as an international marketing campaign, and its advertisements in foreign magazines and on television turned Indian tourism into a recognised brand, with the exclamation mark in the logo forming the letter I. The campaign has since had further editions. Option A is wrong because no such campaign existed in 1998, when tourism promotion was carried out without a single brand. Option C is wrong because 2010 is the year of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, which gave tourism a push but did not launch this campaign. Option D is wrong because 2015 is the year HRIDAY was launched and the year the cabinet cleared Swadesh Darshan, not the year of Incredible India.

The correct answer is B, circuits to destinations. The original Swadesh Darshan spread its money along fifteen themed circuits, each linking several places and often several states, and experience showed that the spending became thin and scattered. Swadesh Darshan 2.0, announced in 2022, therefore selects individual destinations, in part through a challenge-based process, and asks the state government to prepare an integrated plan for each destination covering connectivity, amenities, skills and local participation. Option A is wrong because it reverses the change that actually took place. Option C is wrong because the shift was not from cities to villages, although a separate best tourism village competition exists. Option D is wrong because the scheme serves domestic and foreign visitors alike and the revision did not change that.

The correct answer is A, 25 January. National Tourism Day is observed in India on 25 January every year to spread awareness of the importance of tourism for the economy and for employment, and the Ministry of Tourism marks it with a theme and with events at destinations. Option B is wrong because 27 September is World Tourism Day, observed by the United Nations tourism body, and it was on that day in 2017 that Adopt a Heritage was announced. Option C is wrong because 18 April is World Heritage Day, also called the International Day for Monuments and Sites. Option D is wrong because 5 June is World Environment Day. Candidates should keep these four dates apart, since they are regularly set against one another in the same question.

The correct answer is B, Ministry of Culture. Seva Bhoj Yojana was begun in 2018 by the Ministry of Culture to lighten the burden on temples, gurudwaras, dargahs, churches, monasteries and other charitable religious institutions that distribute free food, known as prasad, langar or bhandara, by reimbursing the central share of the goods and services tax paid on ingredients such as ghee, flour, sugar and pulses. Option A is wrong because the tourism ministry runs Swadesh Darshan, PRASHAD and the publicity campaigns. Option C is wrong because the finance ministry frames the tax but the reimbursement scheme is administered by the culture ministry. Option D is wrong because the food and public distribution ministry handles the public distribution system and buffer stocks, not this refund.

The correct answer is C, 2020. Dekho Apna Desh was launched by the Ministry of Tourism in January 2020 to persuade Indian travellers to see their own country first, and it became better known through a long series of webinars on Indian destinations, crafts and cuisines that were held when travel was restricted. A pledge to visit a set number of destinations within India was also part of it. Option A is wrong because 2014-15 is when Swadesh Darshan and PRASHAD were launched. Option B is wrong because 2017 is the year of Adopt a Heritage and of the renaming of PRASAD as PRASHAD. Option D is wrong because 2023 is the year of Adopt a Heritage 2.0, not of this campaign, though its webinars continued in that year.

The correct answer is C, Industrial Circuit. The fifteen themes identified under Swadesh Darshan are tied to faith, nature, culture and landscape, and industry is not among them. The list includes the Buddhist, Ramayana, Krishna, Himalayan, North East, Coastal, Desert, Tribal, Eco, Wildlife, Rural, Spiritual, Heritage, Tirthankar and Sufi circuits. Option A is wrong as an answer because the Buddhist Circuit is one of the best known of them, linking Bodh Gaya, Sarnath, Kushinagar and Sanchi. Option B is wrong because the Ramayana Circuit connects Ayodhya, Chitrakoot, Shringverpur and other places of the epic. Option D is wrong because the Sufi Circuit, covering dargahs and khanqahs, is also on the list, and the Tirthankar Circuit covers Jain sites associated with the twenty-four Tirthankaras, so three of the four options named here are genuine circuits.