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| State govt is yet to revise its advisory on Chashma Shahi huts? | | Germany revised its travel advisory on Kashmir | | Early Times Report
JAMMU, July 27: One of the best known tourist halt destinations in Srinagar city, the tourist huts in Chashma Shahi area overlooking the picturesque Dal Lake are out of bounds for the tourists who visit the Valley and wish to spend a night or so in these huts.
With the beginning of militancy in the Valley in late 1980s, the tourist huts in Chashma Shahi were occupied by senior bureaucrats of the state government including secretaries, commissioners, principal secretaries and financial commissioners.
The reason for surrendering the best known tourist destination and tourist halt to the civil servants of the state was that Chashma Shahi area is close to the state Raj Bhavan and one of the most secured areas in the Valley.
For the safety and the security of senior bureaucrats especially those belonging to the IAS it was necessary to provide them lodgements at highly secured areas. The huts on the foothills of the Chashma Shahi hillock were declared out of bounds for both locals and the tourists whose arrivals had dropped to zero during the 1990s because of the highly disturbed situation in the state.
Even when the Darbar would move to Jammu during the winter months the huts at Chashma Shahi were not thrown open to either the domestic or the foreign tourists. Security was the magic word that was used by the authorities to brush aside all suggestions that the huts should be made available to the intending lodgers at least during the period of six months when the Darbar functioned from winter capital Jammu.
Much water has flowed down the Jhelum since the huts at Chashma Shahi were declared out of bounds for tourists whether domestic or foreign. The security forces have brought down the levels of the operative militants in the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir from their previous numbers to within a few hundred during this year as per the police and army sources. More than five lakh fifty thousand Yatris have this year so far performed the Yatra to the Holy Cave of Amarnath. The number is expected to rise more till the annual Yatra ends on Shravan Purnima coinciding with the Raksha Bandhan festival on August 13.
A record number of tourists have visited the Valley this summer after three consecutive years of summer unrest there. These are definitely positive signs which were noticed as far away as Germany which has recently revised its travel advisory asking its citizens that they can now visit the Valley as foreigners are no longer direct targets of violence there.
Strange that the drums of near normal conditions were heard as far away as Berlin and Frankfurt, but not in Chashma Shahi which is barely fifty metres away from the state Raj Bhavan!
It is high time the state government revised its own advisory on Chashma Shahi huts and got them vacated so that these are made available to both the foreign and the domestic tourists who can afford them. Till the beginning of militancy there, these huts would be booked in advance by high end tourists who came to spend their evenings overlooking the majesty of the Dal Lake and to enjoy the soul enriching night breeze of the Zabarwan Hills that lashes the area during the night transforming it into a fairy land.
It should no longer be the preserve of the bureaucrats to enjoy the grandeur and beauty of the Chashma Shahi lodgings and that too on the pretext of security which is definitely not relevant there anymore. |
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