By Express News Service
BHOPAL: India’s cleanest city and Madhya Pradesh’s economic capital Indore will inspire the transformation of Uttar Pradesh’s religious city Ayodhya into a top eco-friendly international spiritual tourism destination.
In a first-of-its-kind initiative, the Indian Institute of Indore (IIM-I) has partnered with the Ayodhya Municipal Corporation (AMC) to draw an action plan for transforming Ayodhya – the birthplace of Lord Ram – into the world’s top eco-friendly spiritual tourism destination in line with the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UP CM Yogi Adityanath.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has recently been inked between the IIM-Indore Director Prof Himanshu Rai and Ayodhya’s Municipal Commissioner Vishal Singh as the starting point for the partnership.
As per the MoU, the detailed action plan will include replication of best practices of the Indore model of cleanliness in the AMC, Ayodhya with special enhancements for maintaining cleanliness standards as an international spiritual tourism destination.
It will also entail drafting a plan for implementation of information, education and communication (IEC) as per the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) program. Also, organizing training/capacity building program for AMC employees as well as organizing training programs in Project Management and best practices for public officials of AMC.
The three years IIM-I and AMC partnership will also define new areas of collaboration that have not been foreseen, but can be beneficial to the institutions.
Confirming the development to The New Indian Express on Thursday, Ayodhya’s municipal commissioner Vishal Singh said, “With IIM-I being one of the best management institutions to the country with a diverse team of best management brains, we approached them for the partnership. We expect that this tie-up will render the transfer of best practices of Indore to Ayodhya, as Indore has been a pioneer in the country in making cleanliness and sanitation a signal achievement with the help of proactive public participation.”
“Also, since the Ayodhya Municipal Corporation (AMC) is the governing body of the city of Ayodhya and former Faizabad, the partnership with IIM-Indore will help in the professionalized capacity building of the Corporation. The prime and ultimate motive of the tie-up is to develop as the world’s top eco-friendly spiritual destination,” Singh added.
According to IIM-Indore Director Prof Himanshu Rai, “Work has already begun for making a detailed action plan to develop birthplace of Lord Ram Ayodhya as the most wondrous and clean spiritual tourism destination in the world. Ingraining the focal points of Indore’s success as India’s cleanest city will form an important part of entire exercise. We’ll first start working on information, education and communication facets of the SBM.”
Importantly, it will be Prof Himanshu Rai only, who would head the five-member team on the project. The other management experts in the team, include Prof Ganesh N (Economics), Prof Prashant Salwan (Strategy and International Business), Dr Shruti Tewari (Associate Professor and trained social psychologist) and Prof Aditya Deshbandhu (specialist in new media studies and emerging field of game studies).
Leave a Reply