The mandate of the Ministry of Culture is to protect, preserve & promote various forms of folk art and culture throughout the country and to meet this objective, the Government of India has set up seven Zonal Cultural Centres (ZCCs) with headquarters at Patiala, Nagpur, Udaipur, Allahabad, Kolkata, Dimapur and Thanjavur. These ZCCs engage cultural troupes from different States to participate in the major festivals under National Cultural Exchange Programme (NCEP). Under Ek Bharat Shresth Bharat (EBSB) matrix, a Rashtriya Sanskriti Mahotsav was organized from 7^th to 13^th October, 2017 in various cities of Gujarat viz. Ahmedabad, Vadodra, Rajkot, Somnath and Dwarka.

These ZCCs organize various cultural festivals and programme on regular basis in all the States/UTs of India including Uttar Pradesh. During the last two years, Rashtriya Sanskriti Mahotsavs were organized at New Delhi (in 2015 & 2016), Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh in 2016), Bengaluru (Karnataka in 2017) and Tawang (Arunachal Pradesh in 2017).

Ministry of Culture organizes Festivals of India abroad to showcase the Indian Culture through activities including classical/folk dance, music, theatre, puppetry, cuisine and literary exchange etc. The number of countries where such festivals have been organized during the last two years are as under:

 

Sl. No.	Year	Number of countries
1.	2016-17	17
2.	2017-18	14

 

 

 

 

 

This information was given by Minister of State (IC) for Culture and Minister of State for Environment, Forest & Climate Change Dr. Mahesh Sharma in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.

 

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