In the name of the PRASHAD scheme, what does the letter H stand for?

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, 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.