Fast food giant McDonald’s is opening its first ever vegetarian only restaurant in India.

Set to open next year, the outlet is reported to be located in northern India near the Golden Temple in the Sikh holy city of Amritsar, where religious authorities forbid consumption of meat at the shrine.

“It will be the first time we have opened a vegetarian restaurant in the world,” a spokesman for McDonald’s in northern India, Rajesh Kumar Maini, told AFP.

The McDonald’s menu in India is already 50 per cent vegetarian as animal slaughter is not allowed due to religious reasons.

With a population of 1.2 billion, Maini says it is still a “very small market for McDonald’s”.

“We have just 271 restaurants in India and across the world we have nearly 33,000,” Maini said.

“When you look at the potential of the country, it’s one of the top priority countries and we’re laying the groundwork for capturing the market.”

“We plan to nearly double the number of outlets to 500 plus within the next three years,” he said.

According to reports a second vegetarian only restaurant is planned for Katra near the Vaishno Devi cave shrine in Indian Kashmirm, a revered Hindu pilgrimage site that draws hundreds of thousands of worshippers a year.