The Minister expects over 10,000 tourists, including large numbers of non-resident Indians and foreigners, to visit sites of religious interest in the ``cradle of Buddhism'' namely Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

The ``Baudha Mahotsav'' will include an international seminar on Buddhism in Sarnath on November 6 to be inaugurated by the President, while the Prime Minister is expected to attend the concluding function at Bodhgaya.

The festival will include cultural and thematic presentations on Buddhism by theatre groups from all over the country. It will coincide with satellite events like the Ganga Mahotsav at Banaras and special tours to Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Orissa and Jammu and Kashmir.

The Tourism Ministry has launched a campaign to draw tourists from over 15 South-East Asian and South Asian countries which have significant Buddhist populations. It has dashed off invitations to the Tourism Ministers of these countries, alerted Indian embassies across the globe and made special appeals to NRIs.

The problem would arise if even a fair percentage of the invitees decide to take up the offer.

The infrastructural back-up to handle so many visitors just does not exist. The roads linking the towns of Bodhgaya, Sarnath, Rajgir, Nalanda and Kushinagar, the major sites of Buddhist interest, are in a sorry state. The visitors' woes will be compounded by the inadequate number of decent hotel rooms. But far worse are the number of touts who descend on the hapless tourist as soon as he lands.

``We have co-opted the governments of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in putting up the Mahotsav. They have promised to fix the roads and ensure lighting on streets'', Khurana told journalists.