Kashi Vishwanath Corridor: How this magnificent corridor turned world’s oldest city into a global tourist hub

Kashi is one of the oldest living city. It is mentioned in Vedas and Skanda Purana. It is the birth place of four Jain Tirthankars. Sarnath near Kashi is the holy place where Gautam Buddha delivered his first sermon after self-realisation. Ganga ghat is the place where Goswami Tulsidas wrote immortal Ram Charit Manas and Hanuman Chalisa. It is where Shankaracharya wrote in Kashi Panchakam. It was so important that every preacher and realised spiritual personality including Guru Nanak Dev came to Kashi. It was the centre of learning and spiritual dissemination.

Rs 700 crore Kashi Vishwanath Corridor, inaugurated in December 2021, provides a clear access to Maa Ganga. The mega facelift project built across 550,000 sq. ft comprises 24 buildings that include an emporium, a museum, a sacred kitchen, a Vedic library, a centre to store ancient scriptures, a city gallery, and a food court – all built around the temple that serves as one of the nerve centres of the Hindu faith, attracting seven million pilgrims annually. The showpiece of the project is restoration of the link between Maa Ganga and the temple, an ancient connection that had been cut off by years of encroachment, construction and population. Here it is important tomention that this temple and the ghats of Kashi were renovated by Ahliya Bai Holkar, the 18th-century Maratha Queen of Malwa, after Aurangzeb destroyed it.

Highlights of the Projects:

• With a paved 75-metre wide corridor, the project connects Kashi Vishwanath temple with the Ganga river
• The project area stands at 5 lakh square feet, a massive upgrade from the previous 3,000 square feet premises.
• More than 300 properties had been acquired for the project
• During the destruction of the properties, more than 40 temples were rediscovered, restored and beautified
• The architect of the project was Bimal Patel
• In 2022, Kashi saw a footfall of over seven crore tourists while the first quarter of 2023 recorded over 1.8 crore tourists.