BPSC 70th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 68 of 143

Correct — C, Gaya. The Union Budget 2024-25, presented on 23 July 2024, devoted a run of paragraphs to Bihar tourism, and paragraph 89 of the speech reads: "Vishnupad Temple at Gaya and Mahabodhi Temple at Bodh Gaya in Bihar are of immense spiritual significance. Comprehensive development of Vishnupad Temple Corridor and Mahabodhi Temple Corridor will be supported, modelled on the successful Kashi Vishwanath Temple Corridor, to transform them into world class pilgrim and tourist destinations." The Vishnupad temple stands in Gaya on the bank of the Phalgu, dedicated to Vishnu and built around a forty-centimetre footprint incised into a block of basalt; it is the centre of the Shraddha and Pind Daan rites for which pilgrims come to Gaya, and it was rebuilt in 1787 by Rani Ahilyabai Holkar of Indore. Note the trap in the stem's own wording: the Budget announced a Vishnupad Temple Corridor, not a 'Vishnupad Yojana'. There is no scheme of that name, and a candidate hunting for one in the scheme lists will find nothing — the answer has to come from knowing where the temple is. The other three places all appear in the same tourism section of the speech, which is exactly why they were chosen as distractors, but each under its own separate announcement.

• (a)Rajgir — Named in the very next paragraph of the same speech, but for its own package: the Budget noted Rajgir's significance for Hindus, Buddhists and Jains, singling out the ancient Munisuvrata temple of the 20th Tirthankara in the Jain complex and the Saptharishi hot springs that form the sacred Brahmakund, and promised a comprehensive development initiative there. That is a separate proposal from the Vishnupad corridor.
• (b)Nalanda — Also in the same section, again under its own head: the Budget said the government would support the development of Nalanda as a tourist centre and revive Nalanda University to its former stature. Nalanda's announcement is about a university and a ruin field; the Vishnupad corridor is about a living temple at Gaya, roughly ninety kilometres away.
• (d)Vaishali — The weakest of the four, and revealing about how the option set was built. Vaishali appears in the Budget only in the infrastructure list — as one of the expressway spurs, alongside Bodhgaya, Rajgir and Darbhanga, inside the ₹26,000 crore road package — and not in the temple-corridor proposal at all.

The 'corridor' model that the Budget invokes is a specific piece of policy, not a generic phrase. The Kashi Vishwanath Corridor at Varanasi cleared and rebuilt the congested approach between the temple and the Ganga ghats, adding pilgrim facilities, and is the template the Union government has since applied elsewhere. Applying it to Gaya joins two things the state wants: a religious tourism economy and public infrastructure. The Vishnupad announcement sits inside a much larger Bihar package in the same speech — the Purvodaya plan for the all-round development of the eastern region covering Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh; an industrial node at Gaya on the Amritsar-Kolkata Industrial Corridor, offered as a model of 'Vikas bhi Virasat bhi'; ₹26,000 crore of road projects; ₹21,400 crore of power projects including a new 2400 MW plant at Pirpainti; and ₹11,500 crore for flood mitigation including the Kosi-Mechi intra-state link.

Two routes lead to the answer and both are worth having. The first is geographical: the Vishnupad temple is in Gaya, so a question naming Vishnupad and asking for a place has only one answer, whatever the scheme is called. The second is textual: if you have read the tourism paragraphs of the Budget speech, you know Gaya and Bodh Gaya were paired for corridors while Rajgir and Nalanda each received a separate line. The stem's phrase 'Vishnupad Yojana' is the thing to be careful with — BPSC has renamed a corridor as a yojana, and a candidate who insists on matching the exact scheme name will freeze. Anchor on the temple's location instead. Note also the internal distinction the Budget itself draws: Gaya is the town with the Vishnupad temple, while Bodh Gaya, about thirteen kilometres away, has the Mahabodhi temple; the speech names both, and questions can key on either.

• Union Budget 2024-25 (23 July 2024), speech para 89: comprehensive development of the Vishnupad Temple Corridor at Gaya and the Mahabodhi Temple Corridor at Bodh Gaya, modelled on the Kashi Vishwanath Temple Corridor
• The Vishnupad temple stands on the bank of the Phalgu at Gaya, houses a 40-cm footprint of Vishnu cut into basalt, and was rebuilt in 1787 by Rani Ahilyabai Holkar of Indore
• Paras 90 and 91 of the same speech announced separate packages for Rajgir (Munisuvrata Jain temple, Saptharishi hot springs and Brahmakund) and for Nalanda (tourist centre plus revival of Nalanda University)
• The wider Bihar package: Purvodaya plan for the eastern region; industrial node at Gaya on the Amritsar-Kolkata Industrial Corridor; ₹26,000 crore roads; ₹21,400 crore power including 2400 MW at Pirpainti; ₹11,500 crore flood mitigation including the Kosi-Mechi link
• Gaya is the seat of the Vishnupad temple and Pind Daan rites; Bodh Gaya, about 13 km away, has the Mahabodhi temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 2002

• Hunting for a scheme called 'Vishnupad Yojana'; the Budget's term is Vishnupad Temple Corridor, and the question is really about the temple's location
• Confusing Gaya with Bodh Gaya — Vishnupad is at Gaya, Mahabodhi is at Bodh Gaya, and the Budget announced a corridor for each
• Assuming that every Bihar site mentioned in the Budget belongs to the same proposal; Rajgir, Nalanda and the expressway spurs at Vaishali were separate announcements

BPSC mines the Union Budget for Bihar-specific announcements and asks them as single-fact recall, often paraphrasing the official name of the proposal — so match on the place and the substance, not on the wording. UPSC tends not to ask which town got which corridor; it asks about the scheme architecture instead, or about the site's heritage status, so the same material has to be held in two different shapes.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Vishnupad Temple Corridor announced in the Union Budget 2024-25 was to be modelled on which existing project ?

  • (a)Somnath Temple redevelopment
  • (b)Kashi Vishwanath Temple Corridor
  • (c)Mahakal Lok, Ujjain
  • (d)Char Dham road project

  Answer(b) Kashi Vishwanath Temple Corridor — the Budget speech names it explicitly as the model for both the Vishnupad and Mahabodhi corridors.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Purvodaya, the plan announced in the Union Budget 2024-25, covers which set of States ?

  • (a)Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh
  • (b)Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal
  • (c)Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Assam
  • (d)Bihar, Odisha, Assam, Tripura and West Bengal

  Answer(a) Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh — the five States named in the speech for the all-round development of the eastern region.