Heritage hopping easier as single-ticket window opens

Very shortly,visits to all World Heritage sites and Centrally-protected monuments will become a lot more convenient.

Very shortly,visits to all World Heritage sites and Centrally-protected monuments will become a lot more convenient. The government is finally launching the common ticketing system that will give visitors access to a large number of tourist places with a single ticket. The common ticket will be launched tomorrow by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,who also has charge of the Culture Ministry.

The idea of a common ticket,as first reported by The Indian Express,was mooted by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to do away with long queues for tickets at monuments.

With a single ticket,a visitor in Delhi can now take a pick of 10 World Heritage sites across the country. Tourists who buy a single ticket for five monuments and are not able to visit all five in the Capital can use the same ticket to enter another monument in any other city. These tickets will have barcodes and every time a visitor swipes the ticket,money will be deducted. The tickets will be valid for a year.

The ASI has planned three categories of tickets one exclusively for World Heritage sites,another for all other Centrally-protected monuments and the third for Taj Mahal. Foreign and domestic tourists will,however,have different common tickets as the two pay different rates for entry.

Initially,these tickets might be available only at the ASI headquarters on Janpath in New Delhi and another counter in Agra,but gradually these can be obtained from tour operators,hotelier associations and accredited travel agents.

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