Dr Jitendra, Dr Abdullah, stakeholders attend meet
Fayaz Bukhari
SRINAGAR, Jan 21: The delegation on Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture today met various politicians and stakeholders to review and examine the status of highways and roads, potential and promotion of tourism sector and preservation of archaeological and heritage sites in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Committee led by its Chairman, Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha TG Venkatesh held threadbare discussion on the development of Road, Railway and Air Connectivity during the meeting. Dr Jitendra Singh, Union MoS Prime Minister’s Office and Dr Farooq Abdullah MP Srinagar also attended the meeting.
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Speaking during the meeting, he said that the all-round development of J&K is a major goal of Government of India. He said the Committee is on a visit to understand the problems of residents of J&K to resolve them.
He said that the Committee shall also take stock of the promotion of Tourism sector vis-à-vis tapping domestic tourism, promotion of rural and adventure tourism, hotel infrastructure and development of highways for better road transport connectivity.
Later he told reporters here that the delegation has come to Kashmir for confidence building after COVID-19.
“After COVID, we are here to create confidence and at the same time, we have talked to various stakeholders here. We have talked to them about the problems that they are facing, and what sort of help do they need from the Government”, he said.
“Everything was discussed and all of it cannot be discussed with the media; we are going to take these issues up with the Ministry”, he said.
The PSC chairman said that Government of India is focused on the development of Kashmir. “Kashmir is a very beautiful place and so are the people living here. We are eyeing overall development of Kashmir valley so that people who go abroad and spend a lot of money abroad, come to Kashmir. The local development will take place”, he said.
He added that Modi government is going to invest millions of rupees here. “Our basic mandate is to know about the problems that people are facing here. We met Farooq Abdullah and also talked to him”, he added.
“The parliamentary committee does not come every year. Generally, these issues are not discussed in the Parliament due to the paucity of time; such issues are discussed in the committees and where the action is taken”, he added.
The delegation met various representatives from tour, travel and hospitality sector representing who raised various issues related to better connectivity and promotion of Tourism sector.
The president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Sheikh Ashiq said that they mainly raised the issue of frequent closure of National Highway. “We kept our point of view. We raised the issue of frequent closure of the National Highway. The national highways are an important part of communication and our region is suffering for the last several decades. Now the things have gone even worse and the NH remains closed of traffic for days to together. They have taken a note of it”, he said.
He said that the PSC has assured the Chamber that the issue of highway will be taken at highest level. “They are the representatives of the public so we had a good platform to put our issues in front of them.
We have told them that better road connectivity is a backbone of any economy and by that factor, ours is suffering. We have been assured that the issues will be taken up at the highest level”, he said.
Kashmir Houseboat Owners Association chairman, Abdul Hamid Wangnoo, said that they raised the issues the houseboat owners are facing in Kashmir.
“We raised several issues with them that we houseboat owners are facing currently and we also presented a memorandum to them. This is not something new, every year such delegations come and listen to our issues. At the same time, let me tell you, so far we have got nothing on the ground by assurances”, he said.
“We also raised the issue of national highway; we demanded a direct rail link between Srinagar and Jammu. We also brought in their notice the skyrocketing of air-fares. We briefed them that the airfares from Delhi are so high that a tourist who is planning to come to Kashmir would think twice”, he said.
The spokesman of BJP, Altaf Thakur, said that they met the delegation and raised the issue of skyrocketing of airfare.
“We met the delegation and raised the issue of skyrocketing of airfare due to which the tourism sector in Kashmir is taking a hit. We appealed them to take measures for the upliftment of the tourism sector of Kashmir that has been suffering post 370 and due to the lockdown imposed because of COVID-19 pandemic”, he said.
“We also took the issue of national highway with the delegation and impressed that the road must be upgraded so the frequent closure of the road is avoided and it remains open 24 hours”, he said.
The representatives of various trade and tourism bodies demanded revival and renovation of houseboats, uninterrupted power supply to hotels, financial packages for artisans, rising unemployment graph due to adversely affected tourism sector, need for cap on airfare, train connectivity, promotion of tourist destinations, round the clock functioning of Srinagar International Airport, better facilities at airport, lifting of travel advisories, cultural and adventure sports, medical tourism promotion, preservation of cultural and heritage, enhancement in central government funds, revival and restoration of lakes and other water bodies and better road connectivity across all tourist destinations.
The committee members assured that all the genuine issues shall be taken at appropriate level for resolution.
The committee also held a meeting with officials of Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Government of India, ASI and UT Government on promotion and preservation of Archaeological sites and artefacts in J&K and concerned officers briefed the delegation on measures taken for promotion of archaeological sites, monuments, and artefacts through a power point presentation.
The PSC is on three day visit to Kashmir and is led by Chairman of the Committee TG Venkatesh and other MPs of the delegation on visit to Srinagar include Prassana Acharya, Vinay Dinn Tendulkar, Margani Bharat, Rahul Kaswan, Ramesh Chandra Majhi, Chhedi Paswan, Kamlesh Paswan, Sunil Kumar Pintu, Tirath Singh Rawat, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Ramdas Chandrabhanji Tadas and Krupal Balaji.
Senior officers from Ministry of Tourism Govt of India, Divisional Commissioner Kashmir P K Pole, Secretary Tourism Sarmad Hafeez, Deputy Commissioner Srinagar Shahid Iqbal, Director Tourism, Director Archives & Archaeology, CGM NHAI, GM NHAI, ADG MoRTH and other senior officers were also present on the occasion. The meeting was also joined by senior officers of the J&K Administration through video conferencing.
Meanwhile, taking exception to the allegations of former Chief Minister and MP from Srinagar, Dr Farooq Abdullah about development deficit in J&K during Parliamentary Standing Committee meeting at Srinagar today, Union Minister in PMO, Dr Jitendra Singh termed his charges as baseless.
According to sources, Dr Abdullah during his meeting alleged that nothing has been done for the development of J&K and only baseless claims are being made by the Government. He wanted to know what happened to nine power projects proposed by him for J&K and Airport as all these projects are at standstill.
Dr Abdullah also blamed the Government for not making any headway in running train to Kashmir from Katra, Reasi in last six years while no attention has been paid to develop tourism infrastructure in Jammu region where the lakes of Surinsar and Mansar were totally neglected, sources added.
To these charges, Dr Jitendra Singh politely said that it was NC which ruled the erstwhile State for 30 long years and all the projects about whom Dr Abdullah was talking should have been taken up during his Government when he was at the helm of affairs. The Minister said it is different that some delay was caused due to militancy and COVID as “we were constrained to some extent.”
Sources while quoting Dr Jitendra Singh said the Union Minister made it clear that it was the NC Government which was pathetic towards these projects and six projects including Pakkal Dool, Keru, Dul Hasti Phase IInd, Uri IInd, Sawla Kot and Rattle were sanctioned by BJP Government. On Rattle project, he said the foundation stone was laid by then PM, Dr Manmohan Singh on June 1, 2013 in presence of UPA chairperson, Sonia Gandhi and then CM of J&K, Omar Abdullah but the work was not started and it was in limbo. The project was only taken up yesterday maintained Dr Singh, sources added.
Sources said Dr Jitendra Singh blamed the political parties of provoking people in Kashmir not to pay power tariff which is unfortunate and some political friends of NC ask the people not to allow installation of meters which is not good.
While putting facts about the starting of train service to Kashmir, sources said Dr Jitendra Singh put the record straight saying that when BJP Government took up in 2014 the work on rail project was stopped due to a dispute between Centre and then State Government on alignment and it was only he who brought then Railway Minister, Suresh Prabhu to Reasi to settle the issue. The Union Minister informed the meeting that the train will ply to Kashmir from in next two years. Besides, showing total concern for J&K, PM, Narendra Modi sanctioned metro for the UT which will ply in next three years, sources added while quoting the Union Minister.
Sources said Dr Jitendra also rejected the charges of former CM that no attention was paid to tourism development in J&K especially Surinsar and Mansar lakes. While rebuffing this Dr Jitendra Singh said Mansar and Surinsar Tourism Development Project was launched on first November 2020 with a budget of Rs 200 crore. Besides, the Shahpur Kandi which was stopped by the then State Government in 1975 was started by Modi Government during its first term in office, sources added.
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