Jammu and Kashmir has witnessed a dramatic surge in tourist arrivals over the past five years, fuelled by targeted infrastructure investment under the Government of India’s Swadesh Darshan scheme. According to figures tabled in the Lok Sabha on July 21, more than 8.65 crore domestic tourists have visited the Union Territory between 2020 and 2024, with foreign tourist numbers also steadily climbing after the pandemic-induced slump.The data from the Ministry of Tourism shows that domestic tourist visits (DTVs) skyrocketed from 25.19 lakh in 2020 to over 2.35 crore in 2024, reflecting a tenfold increase in just four years. While international arrivals were initially hampered by COVID-19 restrictions — dropping from 5,317 in 2020 to just 1,650 in 2021 — they rebounded sharply to 65,452 in 2024, registering a compound annual growth rate of nearly 150 per cent over the last three years.
This year, the upward trend continues with tourist footfall in several destinations already surpassing last year’s monthly averages.
This significant increase in tourism is closely linked to infrastructure development carried out under the Swadesh Darshan scheme. As part of the Himalayan circuit theme, the Ministry sanctioned six large-scale tourism development projects in 2016-17 for the region, with a total outlay of Rs 519.58 crore.
These projects, now fully completed, were spread across diverse geographies of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh — connecting major tourist nodes, pilgrimage circuits and border towns.The projects included the development of the Jammu-Srinagar-Pahalgam-Bhagwati Nagar-Anantnag-Salamabad-Uri-Kargil-Leh circuit with an allocation of Rs 77.33 crore, and a Rs 91.84 crore initiative linking Gulmarg, Baramulla, Kupwara, Kargil and Leh. Additional funds were channelled into restoring assets destroyed in the devastating 2014 floods under a Rs 90.43 crore project. Tourist infrastructure in lesser-known destinations such as Mantalai, Sudhmahadev, Zanskar Padum, Daksum and Ranjit Sagar Dam also saw substantial improvement.