EaseMyTrip Partners with NSDC, Sanatan AI to Formalise India’s Spiritual Services Economy

EaseMyTrip has announced a strategic collaboration with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), Sanatan AI, and the Bhagva platform to launch a national-level entrepreneurship initiative to formalise India’s growing spiritual services economy.

The model is designed to enable pandits, pujaris, and Sanskrit-trained youth to become certified micro-entrepreneurs through structured training, standardised service delivery, and access to institutional financing. The initiative is conceptualised as a panchayat-level model, proposing deployment across up to two lakh panchayats over a five-year period.

At the core of the initiative is a mobile, EV-based ‘Shop on Wheels’ unit operating at the panchayat level. Each unit is designed to function as a localised spiritual service and commerce hub, offering pooja bookings, pooja essentials access, religious travel planning, virtual darshan experiences, and facilitation of spiritual events such as kathas and jagrans. The model targets rural and semi-urban India, where access to organised spiritual and cultural services has historically been fragmented.

Within the collaboration, EaseMyTrip will integrate its travel distribution capabilities to enable religious and pilgrimage travel services across the initiative’s decentralised, franchise-led network. The move aligns with the company’s stated focus on strengthening its position in the religious tourism segment and expanding its footprint in markets beyond urban centres.

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 component of the initiative is a candidate pipeline built through institutional training frameworks covering mobilisation, training, certification, and onboarding. The initiative aligns with national priorities in skill development, financial inclusion, and entrepreneurship generation. Eligible participants will be able to access funding to establish and operate their units through a MUDRA-linked financing framework.

For EaseMyTrip, the initiative represents a strategic push into the fast-growing spiritual and religious tourism segment. India’s spiritual economy, encompassing pilgrimage travel, religious events, and associated commerce, has seen sustained growth, driven by increasing domestic travel and renewed interest in cultural heritage. By embedding its travel services within a structured, ground-level distribution network, EaseMyTrip is positioning itself to capture demand from demographics and geographies that digital-first platforms have traditionally struggled to reach.

The NSDC partnership further lends institutional credibility to the initiative, anchoring it within India’s broader skilling infrastructure.