pune agricultural tourism has grown to be a rs 1314 crore industry in maharashtra despite not getting any financial or marketing assistance from the government there are 127 setups across the state offering tourists a chance to experience a slice of rural life the findings were revealed in a survey carried out by the baramati agri and rural tourism training research and development center a private body working towards providing a boost to agricultural tourism more than 33 lakh tourists visited these agritourism centers in maharashtra in 201213 but the potential is much greater there are estimates that suggest that if 10 of domestic tourists in maharashtra travel to these destinations it can become a rs 2800 crore industry said pandurang taware director of the centre said on thursday taware said the main hurdle facing farmers running these centers is the lack of backing from the government agritourism is not on the governments agenda he said it is important to realize that running an agritourism centre can be a great source of supplementary income for farmers but they are neither supported by the agriculture department nor by the tourism department taware said raju bhandarkavathekar who runs an agri tourism centre at solapur said that he currently runs a facility where hurda parties are organized hurda parties are a spinoff of a rural tradition of inviting villagers to your field to munch on raw jowar grains roasted on coal fire during the harvest season we have been running the centre since 2002 and it attracted more than 6000 tourists last year we can only host visitors during the day we want to expand the business but do not have sufficient finances bhandarkavathekar said he said that since the activity is allied to agriculture farmers running such outfits should be entitled to agricultural loans at lower interest rates but are instead made to borrow at market interest rates he also said that aid from tourism agencies such as the maharashtra tourism development corporation mtdc in marketing such facilities was needed to help market such facilities