Bodh Gaya Tourism institute to get its personal constructing at value of ₹50 crores

The Bodh Gaya-based Indian Institute of Tourism and Travel Management (IITTM) operated by the Ministry of Tourism will now have its own building under development on 5 acres of land with an estimated budget of 10 acres £50 crores said the government.

The Union’s Ministry of Tourism, which had been looking for suitable land for the institute since 2018, received five hectares of land in Bodh Gaya from the state government in February. Construction work on the building will begin shortly. Currently, the institute is located on the premises of the Bihar State Institute of Hotel Management (SIHM) in Bodh Gaya.

Union of Tourism Minister of State Prahlad Singh Patel made the announcement in parliament on Tuesday in response to a related question from Rajya Sabha member and former Bihar Deputy Prime Minister Sushil Kumar Modi.

IITTM, Bodh Gaya is the seventh such institute in the country and offers training programs to develop skills in six foreign languages ​​including Korean, Thai, Chinese, Japanese-Burmese and Sri Lanka to meet the needs of foreign tourists in Bodh Gaya.

IITTM was conceived as an autonomous organization under the Ministry of Tourism to provide education, training, research and advice in this sector. The first such institute was founded in 1983 in Delhi. The other six are in Bhubaneshwar, Gwalior, Noida, Goa, Nellore, and Shillong.

“While all the other IITTMs had their own buildings, the building in Bodh Gaya was part of the IITTM Bhubaneshwar from the SIHM building in Bodh Gaya. The Union’s tourism minister, Prahlad Singh Patel, has announced that since the state government has made the land available, this institute will now have its own building, ”said Sushil Kumar Modi.

Bodh Gaya was selected as the location for IITTM in the state because of the need for trained tourism professionals there. The city has the Mahabodhi Temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that attracts tourists from many Buddhist and even non-Buddhist countries. There, a maximum number of guides trained in various foreign languages ​​are required, he added.

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According to the response from the Union Tourism Minister, IITTM Bodh Gaya offered the short-term training program in six foreign languages ​​and 525 tourism professionals were trained during the two academic sessions in 2018-19 and 2019-2020, Modi said.

Abhay Pratap Singh of IITTM, Bhubaneswar said the Bodh Gaya-based IITTM was established as an extension of the IITTM’s Bhuvaneshwar Center. “It was launched in 2018 to meet the requirements for qualified and trained language interpreters and guides at Bodh Gaya. “Currently only six foreign languages ​​are offered. Later training for more foreign languages ​​is also planned there, ”he said.