Waiting for tourists hundreds of Shikara Wallas without work on Dal Lake

PICTURE BY: TARIQ SHAH

Srinagar

By: Shayib Bhat

This is August 19, 2020, this is one of the busy Ghats of Dal Lake where there was no possibility to see any Shikara on the shores during the summers. Apart from tourists these Shikaras used to ferry lot of locals in and around the Dal Lake in summers.

This is only the second day that district administration has eased the restriction of lockdown which remained in force for five months in Srinagar city and with the result there have been activities around Dal Lake also.

Recently government has framed a committee after a meeting of KCCI delegation with Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, as the government is seriously looking for financial intervention to save different sectors including tourism from the current mess as Kashmir has been without any tourism from the past 13 months.

Before the abrogation of article 370, government asked tourists and yatries to leave Kashmir within 24 hours claiming that there was a militant threat to the Amarnath yatra and tourists. After few days of this announcement government started a massive clampdown on the life in Kashmir and it is now 13 months that life remains disrupted here.