By IANS,
New Delhi : Over 3.1 million tourists visited Assam in 2008, the highest in the northeastern states, the Lok Sabha was informed Thursday.
Minister of State for Tourism and Culture Kanti Singh told the house that the development and promotion of tourism is primarily undertaken by the state governments but the ministry extends central financial assistance to project proposals submitted by the state governments.
During the year 2007 to 2008, Rs.1.7 billion (Rs.174.69 crore) were sanctioned for 86 tourism projects in the northeastern region, she said.
She said that between January to October last year, over 3.1 million tourists visited Assam, as compared to over three million in the same period in 2007.
Though, figures for the state of Sikkim were available only from January to May, in this five months period last year, it recorded visits of 209,054 visitors in 2008, as compared to 182,857 in 2007, she said.
A total of 252,546 tourists visited Meghalaya from January to June last year, as compared to 208,166 in the same period in 2007.
The minister said 249,015 tourists visited Tripura from January to December last year, while in 2007 a total of 247,976 people came to this state.
Manipur had 112,505 visitors in calendar 2008 while in 2007 as many as 101,880 travellers came to the state.
The minister said in Mizoram 56,826 tourists visited the state from January to December in 2008, while it was 43,830 the previous year.
In Arunachal Pradesh, as many as 51,107 people visited the state from January to October last year. In the previous year in the same period, 50,307 tourists visited the state, she said.
The figures for Nagaland were not available, Singh added.