Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, July 24: In a joint statement issued today, the tourism related trade organizations said that any move to curtail or limit holy Amarnath Yatra shall be detrimental to the interest of trade bodies in view of various reasons and religious attachment of the Hindus in the country and abroad.
“The issue in the past as well has faced lot of controversies and finally with the approval of religious bodies a religious finale was derived at for the start of the Yatra on the Jyesht Purnima and culmination on Shrawan Purnima”, said tourism related trade bodies which included Jammu Paryatan Vikas Mandal, All Jammu Hotels & Lodges Association, Jammu Hotels, Bar and Restaurants Association, Hotels and Restaurants Association Talab Khatikan, Bus stand Shopkeepers Association, Raghunath Bazar Businessmen Association and Hari Market Businessmen Association. They said the move is fraught with depriving lakh of people to perform religious Yatra to perform darshan of holy Shiva Icelingum.
The statement further said that the population of the country touching 135 crore, every alternate Hindu wants to perform the holy Yatra at least once if not more in his life period. Supreme Court has already fixed the number of yatries performing darshan of the Ice Lingum to 10,000 per day and during 30-day proposed Yatra will be confined to not more than 3 lakh figure. It will be worthwhile to mention that in the past, Yatra 2011 witnessed 6.36 lakh yatries performed darshan of Icelingam and during 2012, figure touched 6.20 lakh mark.
It further said that the Governments in the past have not been sincere in deciding the Yatra periods nor any development has been allowed to take place owing lot of reasons and militancy threat always looming large. Despite donors willing voluntarily to improve roads to Sanctum Sanctorum and improving infrastructure, somehow the purpose was defeated by nefarious designs.
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