Best Tourism Village: Govt nominates Madhya Pradesh’s Ladhpura Khas for UNWTO’s Best Tourism Village award

The project and the subsequent tourism development in the area is likely to benefit the local community directly. (Representational image)

Best Tourism Village: A village in Madhya Pradesh’s Niwari, Ladhpura Khas, has been nominated by the Union Ministry of Tourism for an award by the United Nations World Tourism Organization or the UNWTO under the category of ‘Best Tourism Village’. The development was reported by news agency PTI, which cited MP Tourism and Culture Department Principal Secretary Sheo Shekhar Shukla as saying that the village, located near the tourist town of Orchha, was nominated for the award by the Centre. Along with the MP village, one village from Telangana and a second village from Meghalaya have also been nominated for the award.

Villages in Madhya Pradesh are being revamped into becoming tourist villages as a part of the ‘Rural Tourism Project’, Shukla added. Ladhpura Khas is one of these villages. The objective of the project is to give the concept of village tourism a proper shape by adding some new dimensions. As a part of the project, a whopping 100 villages would be developed in the next half decade keeping in mind the angle of rural tourism. For this purpose, sites around tourist places would be selected and developed. Places like Mandu, Khajuraho, Orchha, Tamia, Pachmarhi, Bandhavgarh National Park, Pench and Kanha National Park, Panna National Park, and Sanjay Dubri National Park, among other places, are being scouted and villages near them are being selected for the purpose.

Rural tourism, as per Shukla, is an opportunity for local people to understand what the tourists find interesting and what they need, while also keeping the local culture and tradition intact with equal importance.

The project and the subsequent tourism development in the area is likely to benefit the local community directly. Moreover, to involve the community in this project, the MP Tourism Board is also training locals in developing products related to tourism.