The Kashmir Chamber of Commerce & Industry (Inc) President Sheikh Ashiq Ahmad has in a statement said that the Chamber has been continuously calling attention of the State/ Central Government to the unfair rate of air fare applied by different Airlines operating on Kashmir air routes.
He in a statement said that the airfares for Delhi –Srinagar and Srinagar – Delhi have been exorbitantly ranging between 9,000/- to over 20,000/- recently.
“It is causing a great worry not only to the students and desperate patients who have to travel outside the valley, but also to the tourist trade stake holders,” he added.
He further added that the tourism trade was expecting a huge inflow of winter tourism, as the affiliated Tour / Travel Trade Bodies of the KCC&I have fanned out in the country putting their hard efforts to promote winter tourism.
Besides the efforts are made by the department of State Tourism for the growth of tourist business but unfortunately huge airfares have been playing the counter as the tourists intending to enjoy winter in Srinagar are not ready to bear the high airfare and are therefore prevented to do so, said KCCI president in a statement.
“The inclement weather and resultant bad road connectivity further aggravate the situation. And as a result the Tourism business in particular and the economy of the State in general gets hard hit,” he said.
“It is pertinent to mention here that the airfares on international route from Delhi are paradoxically far lower than those ruling the Delhi- Jammu- Srinagar air routes. In fact airfares for Delhi to other more distant domestic routes are much lower,” he added.
We also request authorities to increase number of flights to this route so that they can adjust more passengers with capping airfare, he further added.
The Kashmir Chamber of Commerce & Industry (Inc) would therefore again draw the attention of the authorities concerned to look into the procedure / criteria adopted by the airlines in fixing the airfares by different airlines for Kashmir routes and have the same rationally regulated by the airlines so that beside alleviating the hardship faced by local passengers viz students and patients the tourists are encouraged to visit Kashmir in larger numbers .