OREANDA-NEWS. Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), a public sector undertaking of Ministry of Railways, operates various Tourist Trains for pilgrimage places all over the country through Bharat Darshan Trains, Buddhist Trains and State Special Trains. In addition, IRCTC is operating Religious Circuit trains as announced in Rail Budget 2014-15 for various pilgrim places.

The places covered are Tirupathi, Rameshwaram, Madurai, Kanyakumari, Trivandrum, Mysore, Shirdi, Nasik, Dwarka, Ujain, Somnath, Mathura, Agra, Ajmer, Jaipur, Haridwar, Vaishno Devi, Ayodhya, Gaya, Varanasi, Nalanda, Rajgir, Kushinagar, Lumbini, Amritsar etc.

New pilgrim areas extended are Bijapur, Solapur, Badami, Melmaruvathur, Vaitheeswarankoli, Thiruvenkadu, Keelamerumpallam, Thirunallar, Alangudi, Surianarkoli, Kanjamur, Thirunageswaran, Thimngaglur, Parasnath, St. Francis Xavier (Old Goa), Mecca Masjid (Hyderabad),  Nanded Saheb, Nanak Jhira Gurudwara, Sri Patna Sahib, Kanchipuram etc.

ITCTC has operated four Religious Circuit Trains from October 2014 and more itineraries are uploaded on Tourism portal (www.irctctourism.com) for booking of the passengers.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Railways Shri Manoj Sinha in written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.