KOLKATA/DIGHA: The first season of Rath Yatra in Digha has yielded a net cash inflow of Rs 100 crore for the coastal town, a final count by various trade bodies and the Jagannath temple management has revealed. The business boost has been felt across sectors — hotel and hospitality, transport and local commerce — and stakeholders say the temple is paving the way for a churn in Digha’s economy. They expect the annual festival to be a major driver of growth.
The temple itself received about Rs 17 lakh as pranami during the two-week festival, which will be used for “maintenance and further development work”, said Radharaman Das, a trustee of the Digha Jagannath Dham and vice-president of Iskcon Kolkata. According to his estimate, over 12 lakh devotees visited Digha for Rath Yatra.Local businesses say the chariot festival turned the post-summer vacation period into another “peak tourist season”. “We get maximum tourists during summer and winter vacations when schools and colleges are closed. The Rath Yatra came just after the summer vacation and we saw a steady inflow of new groups of tourists from the last week of June to the first week of this month. For us, the festival turned out to be a source of additional revenue during a period that was considered off-season till last year,” said Ashok Samanta, president of New Digha Saikatshree Market Traders’ Association. The 1,100-odd stalls on Saikat Sarani along the beach selling local merchandise together earned an estimated of Rs 5 crore, he said.Of the Rs 100-crore revenue that Rath Yatra generated, a significant portion went to the hotel and hospitality industry and allied sectors. There are about 850 hotels with more than 25,000 rooms in the seaside town and daily tariffs range from Rs 1,000 for a non-AC room to about Rs 4,000 for a premium AC one.Bipradas Chatterjee, joint Secretary of Digha Sankarpur Hoteliers Association told TOI that during the Rath Yatra season, on average, 12 rooms per hotel were rented out for anything between Rs 2,000 and Rs 4,000 per room. “Based on this, the income from hotel room rentals in Digha over the past 10 days stands at around Rs 30 crore. The average hotel bookings per day stood at around 22,000,” said Chatterjee. Besides, there were about 10,000 flying tourists who came in for a few hours each day and returned by night.Somnath Ghosh, an official in charge of the Digha bus depot, said revenue from buses stood at about Rs 50 crore during the festival. “Tourists came from different parts of the state, especially Kolkata. Besides, some tourists reserved buses. Each reserved bus fetched us Rs 35,000 per day,” he added.According to restaurant owners in the town, transactions worth nearly Rs 15 crore took place over the past 10 days for snacks and meals. The Rail Coach Restaurant, a train compartment turned into an AC restaurant adjacent to Digha railway station was a top draw for tourists. Biplab Senapati, who runs this restaurant, said, “The crowd started pouring in about two days before Rath and their number swelled gradually over the next 10 days. Our daily transactions surged and we had to roped in 10 additional workers to attend to customers.”Murtaza Shah, a resident of Jatimati village near Digha’s helipad ground, who has been selling conch and shell products for over three decades, says the new temple has come as a blessing and will set them off on the road to prosperity. “Digha saw a lot of development in the past five years and now the Jagannath temple is drawing devotees throughout the week,” he said.
