State Legislator Urges Centre to Add Odisha Buddhist Sites to National Pilgrimage Circuit

In a formal address delivered before the parliamentary standing committee on cultural affairs on Thursday, the Honorable Member of the Legislative Assembly for Sambalpur, Mr. Sasmit Kumar Sahoo, implored the Union Ministry of Tourism and Culture to amend the forthcoming National Pilgrimage Circuit by formally incorporating the trio of ancient Buddhist monuments situated within the erstwhile Kalinga region, namely the UNESCO‑inscribed sites of Ratnagiri, Lalitgiri, and Udayagiri, whose historic significance remains under‑represented in current promotional literature.

His petition, accompanied by a compendium of archaeological surveys and tourism impact studies prepared by the Department of Archaeology of Odisha, contends that the exclusion of these sites not only diminishes the cultural tapestry presented to prospective pilgrims but also deprives the local populace of a considerable influx of economic activity traditionally associated with heritage tourism.

The legislator further remarked that the present itinerary, dominated by monuments of Hindu and Islamic provenance, conveys a selective narrative that inadvertently marginalizes the Buddhist epoch, an era once central to the region’s identity and to the broader diffusion of Dharma across the subcontinent.

Municipal officials of the Puri district, responsible for maintaining the access roads and visitor amenities surrounding the aforementioned sanctuaries, have repeatedly signaled to the state government their incapacity to meet rising maintenance demands without the infusion of central funds earmarked for circuit development, thereby exposing a chronic shortfall in coordinated fiscal planning between levied tiers of governance.

The delayed completion of the new arterial bypass linking the inland heritage cluster with the coastal highway, originally slated for inauguration in 2024, has further aggravated the accessibility issue, prompting local commerce chambers to lodge formal complaints that the promised economic uplift remains a distant mirage rather than a tangible reality for small‑scale vendors and homestead proprietors.

Moreover, the central ministry’s recent proclamation of a nationwide pilgrimage enhancement programme, which conspicuously omits any reference to the Kalinga Buddhist itinerary, has been interpreted by regional stakeholders as an institutional oversight that betrays the declared policy of inclusive cultural representation, thereby eroding public confidence in the equitable distribution of developmental resources.

In response to the deputation, the Minister of State for Culture intimated that a comprehensive review of the circuit’s composition would be convened within the next fiscal quarter, yet offered no concrete timetable for the incorporation of the Odishan sites, thereby perpetuating a pattern of verbal assurances unaccompanied by actionable implementation plans.

Critics within the opposition benches have seized upon the episode to allege that the central administration’s predilection for symbolic heritage projects, bereft of substantive infrastructural support, reflects a broader malaise wherein political grandstanding eclipses the pragmatic necessities of community welfare and sustainable tourism development.

Given that the municipal authorities of Puri district have repeatedly documented insufficient funding and infrastructural inadequacies for maintaining access to the Buddhist monuments, yet the central government persists in allocating resources solely to already established pilgrimage destinations, does this disparity not reveal a systemic neglect of statutory obligations to equitably distribute public expenditure, thereby contravening the constitutional principle of balanced regional development, and further, does the continued reliance on ad‑hoc ministerial assurances—rather than enforceable statutory mandates or transparent audit findings—demonstrate an institutional complacency that undermines the very purpose of inter‑governmental fiscal coordination, raising the pressing question of whether existing mechanisms possess sufficient authority to compel corrective action against entrenched fiscal bias and to ensure that heritage sites of national significance are treated with parity under the law, and whether the attendant socioeconomic repercussions for the resident artisans, hotel operators, and transport providers—who endure diminished livelihood prospects as a direct consequence of the exclusion—are being duly recorded in any official cost‑benefit analysis presented to Parliament?

Considering that the Ministry of Tourism and Culture has proclaimed a comprehensive national pilgrimage enhancement programme yet omitted any reference to the Kalinga Buddhist circuit, can the legislative oversight committees legitimately claim that their supervisory remit encompasses equitable cultural inclusion, or does the omission betray an entrenched procedural inertia that permits selective heritage promotion, thereby compelling a review of whether the existing statutory criteria for circuit designation are sufficiently transparent, objectively applied, and insulated from political lobbying, and whether the recurring pattern of promises unaccompanied by budgetary allocations constitutes a breach of the public trust that might merit judicial scrutiny under constitutional provisions guaranteeing the right to cultural life and equitable development, and whether the absence of an independent monitoring body tasked with verifying the implementation of such programmes, alongside the lack of a publicly accessible grievance redressal mechanism for affected residents, not only undermines administrative transparency but also raises the prospect of systematic disenfranchisement of communities whose cultural patrimony remains marginalized by policy inaction?

Published: May 29, 2026