Union Culture and Tourism Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat on Thursday, 18 June 2026 hailed twelve years of the NDA government's cultural policy, asserting that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has given its civilisation, heritage, and traditions a renewed identity.

Posting on X under the hashtag #12YearsOfVikasBhiVirasatBhi, Shekhawat wrote: 'प्रधानमंत्री श्री @narendramodi जी के नेतृत्व में भारत ने अपनी संस्कृति, विरासत और परंपराओं को नई पहचान दिलाई है' — 'Under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, India has given a new identity to its culture, heritage, and traditions.' He added: 'This is the new India — an India proud of its heritage, an India connected to faith.'

Context

The hashtag Vikas Bhi Virasat Bhi — meaning 'Development as well as Heritage' — has served as a defining campaign slogan for the NDA government since 2014, framing cultural preservation not as separate from economic progress but as integral to it. The phrase encapsulates a dual mandate that the ruling coalition has consistently invoked across elections and policy announcements.

Shekhawat's post, accompanied by a video, marks what the government counts as the twelfth year of this approach — a milestone that the Ministry of Culture and Tourism is using to spotlight the arc of heritage-linked governance since May 2014.

Policy Backdrop

The Swadesh Darshan scheme, launched in 2014-15, created theme-based tourist circuits — including heritage and spiritual routes — aimed at integrating cultural sites into mainstream tourism infrastructure. In parallel, the PRASAD scheme (Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual Augmentation Drive), also launched in 2014-15, channelled central funds into infrastructure upgrades at identified pilgrimage destinations across the country.

Together, these two flagship programmes form the institutional backbone of what the government describes as its virasat (heritage) agenda. Both schemes have seen successive budget allocations and expanded lists of beneficiary sites over the past decade, touching destinations from Varanasi and Amritsar to Kedarnath and Dwarka.

Stakeholders and Impact

Domestic tourists and pilgrims are the primary beneficiaries of the policy architecture Shekhawat's post celebrates. Improved connectivity, sanitation, and visitor facilities at heritage and pilgrimage sites have drawn higher footfall to locations that were previously under-served by tourism infrastructure.

For Rajasthan — Shekhawat's home state and one of India's richest repositories of forts, temples, and intangible cultural traditions — the convergence of cultural pride and tourism investment carries particular economic resonance. The state's artisans, hoteliers, and guide communities are directly tied to the health of heritage tourism circuits.

What's Next

Attention now turns to the Union Budget 2026-27, where allocations for the Ministry of Culture and any new project announcements under PRASAD or Swadesh Darshan will signal how ambitiously the government intends to build on the twelve-year record it is now publicly marking. Any expansion of the beneficiary-site lists or fresh funding tranches will be closely watched by state governments and the tourism industry alike.

The twelve-year milestone also sets a political baseline: as the NDA enters what it frames as a consolidation phase, the Vikas Bhi Virasat Bhi narrative is likely to feature prominently in both policy communication and electoral messaging in the months ahead.