AN ECONOMIC GAME CHANGER : BIHAR RURAL TOURISM WITH REFERENCE TO MITHILA HAAT

The soul of Bihar lives in its villages. Bihar has 45,098 villages, 8,463 gram panchayats, and more than 70 percent of the state population lives in villages. It ranks 3rd in the country in terms of its population.2 It has a 6.55 percent of forest areas out of total areas, that is 94,163 sq. km. The state has a humid subtropical monsoon climate, and annual rainfall is 127 mm. The best time to visit Bihar is from October to March every year. The landlocked state of Bihar is surrounded by Nepal, West Bengal, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, and U.P. and comprises four cultural regions — Bhojpur, Mithila, Magadh, and Hastinapur. It has 38 districts. The length of the National Highway in Bihar is 3754 Km, and the length of the railway track is more than 5400 Km. In this way, Bihar has great potential to develop as a tourist destination. Bihar with the unparallel range and diversity of natural geographic cultural and artistic resources has room for the growth of the tourism industry. Rural tourism in Bihar has the potentiality to grow at a high rate and can ensure other consequential development of infrastructure of the destination and can stimulate other sector like horticulture, handicrafts, transport construction etc. through its cross sectoral synergies.