The high airfare from Indian metropolitan cities to Srinagar has the potential to decrease the flow of tourists in Kashmir and may entice the prospective group of tourists from Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru to choose destinations where the commute to and from is cheaper. That would wreak havoc with the footfall of tourists next year. The government must intervene in due course of time to prevent that from happening.
The cost of air travel in Kashmir is skyrocketing at a time when the government in Thailand has green-flagged visa-free entry for all Indians which was already done by recession-hit Sri Lanka much earlier. For example, a traveler from Bengaluru, Kochi, Coimbatore, Chennai, and Hyderabad will find a trip to Sri Lanka twice cheaper than a trip to Kashmir – the airfare from Bengaluru to Colombo is exactly half or even less than half than the average airfare from Bengaluru to Srinagar. Besides, traveling to Sri Lanka or Thailand adds to the power of their passport and helps them in getting subsequent visas in coming years to travel to European and North American cities. At present, if we have to plan a weekend trip from say Hyderabad and we have two choices – Thailand and Kashmir, then Thailand looks almost the same budget as Kashmir.
The rising cost of airfare has all the more potential to cause serious harm to tourism potential in Kashmir because the railway connection between Delhi and Kashmir is supposed to be thrown open towards the middle or end of next year – still one year away for all practical purposes. Road travel from Delhi to Srinagar is something that not all aged or middle-aged tourists would like to undertake. So that leaves us with an air commute.
At a time when countries like Thailand and Sri Lanka are providing visa-free entry to Indian tourists, it would be extremely difficult to direct tourists towards Kashmir. Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha needs to step in and do a series of negotiations with airline operators to find a middle ground. The Lieutenant Governor has already taken a series of steps to set the stage for doubling the tourist footfall in Kashmir. LG Manoj Sinha would be keener than anyone else to address this issue immediately. The airline operators cannot be allowed to have a free hand in arbitrarily deciding the prices of airfare from metropolitan cities of India to Srinagar. This is an important route and it is high time that we double the number of tourist footfalls to Kashmir. We are hopeful that LG Manoj Sinha will tackle this issue with his magnanimity and industry soon.
