Cemeteries to boost tourism in HP

Shimla, Nov 5 (UNI) The Himachal Pradesh Government has decided to repair and renovate all neglected cemeteries in the state after receiving queries from British citizens, desirous to visit the graves of their relatives buried here during the British rule.

ђAfter receiving several queries on the cemeteries from British tour operators, the tourism department decided to repair and renovate all cemeteries in the state to give tourism a boost,Ғ Tourism and Transport Minister G S Bali told UNI here.

Several thousand Britons were buried in garrisons, cantonments and towns of northern India following the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, of which the 150th anniversary will be celebrated next year.

Mr Bali said the government was also planning to list cemeteries systematically and document information on people who were buried in the cemeteries, if necessary, by consulting Church and India Office records in the British archives.

Since townships of McLeodganj, Dalhousie and Kasauli in Himachal were home to large populations of foreigners during the British era, cemeteries in the state were full of their graves, he said.

He said several foreigners in the past have also approached the state tourism department in search for the graves of their relatives who lived, died in the area and were buried in various cemeteries of the state.

Sources in the tourism department said private individuals have already made the task of the Himachal Government easy by detailing information and archival data in websites and official records.

Archival date on websites and other records were helping relatives coming here in search of their own family roots, remains and memorials of ancestors and loved ones whose mortal remains never returned to the land of their origin.

The British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia (BACSA) was just one of the websites that was keeping a record of cemeteries in the country.

According to the website, about two million European men, women and children are buried in the Indian subcontinent alone which also details an archive built up of 26 years to form a unique record of over 1,300 cemeteries based on official sources with inscriptions and photographs.

Himachal Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (HPTDC) Managing Director Tarun Shridhar said the department was framing its strategy on the subject to give tourism a boost in the state.

After health, religious and rural tourisms, cemeteries in the state would boost tourism in the state, he added.

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