Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 23: The members of All Jammu Hotels and Lodges Association (AJHLA) expressed serious concern over the discrimination by the J&K Government.
In this regard a meeting was held here today, in which Inderjeet Khajuria, AJHLA, the chairman expressed serious concern over the plight of hoteliers and other tourism dependent stake holders who are passing through their worst phase of life because of almost zero business due to ignoring of Jammu as an independent tourism destination.
Speaking on the occasion, Pawan Gupta, President of the association welcomed the decision of Government to hold Shri Amarnath Ji Yatra for 52 days this year along with the important decisions taken, such as widened tracks, enhanced security arrangements, easy registration, etc., for the upcoming yatra.
Gupta further said that our association is hopeful that the Government will also start taking necessary steps in the direction to protect the natural ice Lingam in addition to announced project of making new tunnels and roads in the path of Shri Amarnath Ji route which would definitely shorten the distance of Shri Amarnath Ji yatra and will surely help devotees to complete this yatra within 09 hours instead of presently 03 days, a wonderful work to be done by the Government.
He further added that tourism industry in Jammu is already on ventilator since the extension of train service from Jammu to Katra and Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Ji pilgrims are going directly to Katra bye- passing Jammu and presently only 30 to 35 % Shri Amarnath devotees are going to Amarnath by passing through Jammu and very shortly, Kashmir is going to get connected directly with rest of India, a praiseworthy developmental step and as such devotees as well as tourists will prefer to go directly to Kashmir rather than visiting Jammu in coming Shri Amarnath Ji Yatra. The clouds of business adversity are hovering over Jammu tourism industry.
The association appealed the Government to come forward to the rescue of Jammu tourism industry by taking necessary measures to develop Jammu as an independent tourist destination otherwise Jammu would be wiped out from tourism map.
Among others who attended the meeting included M L Sharma, Anil Khajuria, Pritam Sharma, H S Manhas, Baldev Raj, Sunil Suri ,Swarn Singh and Varun Gupta.
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