Gaya district magistrate Sanjay Kumar Singh flags off the bus in Bodhgaya on Sunday. Picture by Suman

Patna, Jan. 16: Gaya district magistrate Sanjay Kumar Singh today flagged off the AC bus service between Bodhgaya and Nalanda.

On the first day of its service, 25 passengers were on board. They visited tourist destinations of Rajgir and Nalanda as part of the daylong tour package.

Rajgir is 70km north-east of Bodhgaya. Nalanda is 15km off Rajgir.

Those who availed the package today were taken to the tourist destinations in an air-conditioned bus.

A qualified guide accompanied them to Nalanda and Rajgir, two important destinations of historical importance.

The tourists were provided breakfast, lunch and evening refreshment packets.

The sight-seeing facility has been introduced on the initiative of the Bodhgaya Temple Management Committee (BTMC). Singh is its ex-officio chairman.

Though each ticket under this package is priced at Rs 900, the tourists were charged Rs 750 each today. The special price offer can be availed this week only. Children up to 10 will be charged Rs 499 for the ride. Children below three will not be charged.

“Twenty-five tourists booked tickets on the first day but we expect the demand for the service to increase in future,” Singh told The Telegraph over phone from Bodhgaya.

Besides a well-guided journey, tourists availing the bus service watched four films of around 25-minute duration each.

They were on the ancient Nalanda University, Mahabodhi Temple, history of Mahabodhi Temple and the major places visited by Gautam Buddha before and after attaining enlightenment.

BTMC has entered into an agreement with Pracheen Bharat for providing this service. Pracheen Bharat was jointly floated by two Bangalore-based software engineers — Navin Sharma and Mahadeva Swami Kakoor. Sharma has his roots in Nalanda district of Bihar.

Pracheen Bharat specialises in making animations on places of historic importance and in promoting packaged tours to such places.

According to the agreement terms, Pracheen Bharat will mobilise all the resources, including the air-conditioned bus, for organising the tour. BTMC will be its facilitator.