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| Mehbooba, her ilk eating humble pie | | Her war mongering goes for toss as tourists return to Kashmir | | Early Times Report
jammu, Dec 12: What could send the PDP president and her ilk into tizzy is the huge rush of tourists planning to visit Kashmir on new year eve, leaving her rhetoric that "Valley would turn into an inferno" inviolably rejected.
Ahead of the Article 370 abrogation and after her release from 14 months of captivity, the PDP President and her coteries would often describe the Kashmir situation as "ruthlessly worrisome and violent," stating that the scarping of the special status has plunged the erstwhile state into an unending cycle of uncertainty.
However, her claims and rhetoric are falling flat as normalcy is returning to the lives in Jammu and Kashmir. One tight slap on the faces of trouble makers is the arrival of tourists who are making beeline to the tourist resorts at large.
As per the reports, hotels are witnessing full occupancy on the New Year eve in Gulmarg and other tourist resorts. Such a development is proving that the brow beating has now become a thing of past.
According to the official figures, 23,936 tourists have arrived in Kashmir this year with October and November witnessing the maximum number of footfall.
In October, around 2,592 tourists arrived in Kashmir that include 2,557 domestic and 35 foreigners.
Similarly, till 15 November, 2,338 tourists have landed in the Valley including 2317 domestic and 21 foreigners.
Some 20 percent of the Kashmir's 12.5 million people directly or indirectly depend on tourism for their livelihoods. Data compiled by the Indian Journal of Economics and Development show that 425,000 people are directly dependent on tourism for their income. They include management and employees of hotels, houseboats, guest houses, restaurant dormitories, and tent houses. A further 2.1 million Kashmiri people indirectly depend on tourism, such as taxi drivers, shopkeepers, vendors, and fruit sellers.
The government records also show that it has some 1 million artisans working in handicrafts sector, whose products are sold to the tourists, mainly as souvenirs.
It is pertinent to mention that tourism accounts for 7 percent of the region's income and is considered an important sector of Kashmir's economy.
Furthermore, there had been a dip of 53 percent in the tourist footfall as compared to that of the previous years. Earlier, total of 67181 tourists visited valley in April 2017. In 2018, the number during this period was 142761. The government figures reveal that 403442 tourists visited valley in the first four months of 2016 (till April 31) as compared to 181102 during the corresponding period this year, marking a sharp dip of 56 percent. The tourist footfall was even higher (290154) in April 2015 notwithstanding the fact that the valley had witnessed devastating floods a few months back. |
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