Srinagar: Notwithstanding the J&K government’s objections to exorbitant airfares in winter, airlines and ticketing agents continue to make hay by charging multiple times the normal price of tickets on the Srinagar route.
A look at travel websites showed the airfare for New Delhi-Dubai on Tuesday (Feb 6) as ranging around Rs 9,000. The fare for Srinagar-Delhi on the same day started from Rs 14,000.
Besides dissuading tourists, the high fares put severe strain on the budget of locals who have to travel in this season, left with no option than flights due to the shutdown, or miserable chaos, on the Srinagar-Jammu highway.
The government on Monday warned of legal action against airlines for overcharging, but it has had no effect as airfares continue to mount.
In worst plight are patients who have to travel outside the Valley for medical treatment. Wajid Ahmad Ganai of Nowgam has had to delay his mother’s treatment at a New Delhi hospital due to the overpriced fares.
For three passengers, he said, he has to spend Rs 50,000 to travel 900 kms from Srinagar to Delhi. “There are many people like us who can’t travel because of the unbearable airfares,” he said.
Kashmir’s top trade body, the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), says the consequences are serious for patients and their families who cannot afford the costs of air travel in this season.
KCCI vice president Nasir Hamid Khan blamed “vested interests” for the “blatant opportunism and exploitation of helpless travellers”.
Khan demanded stringent rules to bring down the soaring airfares, including invoking of the Essential Services Act and bringing air travel under its purview.
According to insiders, among the reasons for the high fares is the selling of a huge chunk of tickets by airlines to travel agents. Khan reiterated the KCCI’s demand of an inquiry into the alleged black marketing of tickets and identification of individuals and organisations benefiting from the “exploitation”.
The situation has prompted Kashmir Ticketing Agents Forum to blunt criticism by blaming three “problematic months” of December, January and February during which traffic on the Srinagar-Jammu highway is affected. But several ticketing agents acknowledge privately that the winter months are a “chance for them to compensate losses”.
Air tickets in other seasons are normally sold on the Srinagar-Delhi and Srinagar-Jammu routes for merely Rs 3,000 and Rs 2,000. By purchasing tickets in bulk, agents suffer losses due to less number of passengers, especially when protests hit the Valley and tourists stay away.
During winters, the agents make up for these losses by selling the tickets tactically, in batches over a period of time, depending on the situation.
On Tuesday, for example, a ticket originally purchased for Rs 3,000 was being sold by agents at more than four times the price.
Kashmir Reader learnt that a traveller who was known to a ticketing agent got a ticket for Rs 3,500 even in this season, when the same ticket was sold last week above Rs 10,000.
The government’s failure to provide an alternate or all-weather Srinagar-Jammu highway is also to blame for the winter crisis. The 8.5-km Banihal-Qazigund tunnel, which would have reduced impact of weather vagaries on the strategic highway, is being built since 2011 but is still not complete. The reasons range from officialdom to financial constraints.
(Kashmir Reader)
