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EaseMyTrip, one of India's leading online travel-tech platforms, has announced a strategic collaboration with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and Sanatan AI, along with the Bhagva platform, to launch a national-level entrepreneurship initiative aimed at formalising India's growing spiritual services economy.
Conceptualised as a structured, Panchayat-level model, the initiative will be implemented under the framework "1 Panchayat - 1 Pandit - SANATANAI Shop on Wheels by EMT." It is designed to enable Pandits, Pujaris and Sanskrit-trained youth to become certified micro-entrepreneurs through a combination of structured training, standardised service delivery, and access to institutional financing. At the core of the model is a mobile, EV-based "Shop on Wheels" unit, which will function as a localised spiritual service and commerce hub. Each unit will operate at the Panchayat level, offering an integrated suite of services including pooja bookings, pooja samagri access, religious travel planning, virtual darshan experiences, and facilitation of spiritual events such as kathas and jagrans. The initiative proposes deployment across up to 2 lakh Panchayats over a five-year period, creating a distributed network of service providers and enabling structured access to spiritual and cultural services across rural and semi-urban India. Within the collaboration, EaseMyTrip will enable religious and pilgrimage travel services, integrating its travel distribution capabilities into the broader ecosystem and extending its reach through a decentralised, franchise-led network. This aligns with the company's focus on strengthening its presence in the religious tourism segment and expanding access in rural markets. Commenting on this, Nishant Pitti, Founder and Chairman of EaseMyTrip, said, "This initiative is focused on building a structured and scalable ecosystem that brings together skill development, service standardisation, and access to markets. By integrating travel services within this framework, EaseMyTrip aims to strengthen service accessibility while supporting the transition of traditional service providers into a more formalised economic system." A key feature of the initiative is the development of a candidate pipeline through institutional training frameworks, enabling mobilisation, training, certification, and onboarding into the entrepreneurship model. Aligned with national priorities around skill development, financial inclusion, and entrepreneurship generation, the initiative will be further supported through a MUDRA-linked financing framework, under which eligible participants may access funding to establish and operate their units. For EaseMyTrip, this collaboration, supported by institutional partnerships, represents a strategic step towards expanding its presence in the fast-growing spiritual and religious tourism segment while strengthening its reach across rural and semi-urban markets. EaseMyTrip (listed on NSE and BSE) is one of India's largest online travel-tech platforms in terms of air ticket bookings, as per the Crisil Report-Assessment of the OTA Industry in India (Feb 2021). (ANI)
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