Heard of Chhattisgarh's Rajnandgaon? It gets more tourists than Taj Mahal, Goa!

Rajnandgaon district – home to the home to the famous Bamleshwari temple in Dongargarh – was visited by 80 lakh tourists in 2014.

Pic courtesy: Bamleshwari.org

New Delhi: Located around 80 kilometres from state capital Raipur, Rajnandgaon district of Chhattisgarh may be the most popular tourist spot in the country if state government's claims are to be true.

As per a report in The Times of India, the administrative report of the state's tourism department says that 2.44 crore tourists visited the Chhattisgarh in 2014 – that when the state's total population is about 2.55 crore as per 2011 census.

Rajnandgaon district – home to the home to the famous Bamleshwari temple in Dongargarh – was visited by 80 lakh tourists. The second spot went to Bilaspur with 45 lakh and Mungeli with 22 lakh tourists respectively.

In comparison, only 60 lakh tourists visited the Taj Mahal last year, while just 40 lakh enjoyed the sun-and-sand of Goa.

Officials of Chhattisgarh Tourism Board remain tight-lipped about the findings of the report while asserting that there is no uniform mechanism or methodology to calculate tourist footfall in the country.