At a time when almost all the entities including the common man is waiting for the opening of the national highway 44’s vital stretch connecting J&K’s winter capital Jammu with its summer capital Srinagar, which has been shut for the last nearly one week due to landslides and flash floods at several places after the unprecedented rainfall in the Union Territory, there seems to be a few entities not wishing that this route gets through. Those probably are the airline companies which are making undue profit by raising the air fares on these segments as was reported in the print media recently.
As the days are passing with authorities still uncertain about opening of the strategic Jammu-Srinagar highway, the only option left for the passengers is travel by air but the soaring prices by the airlines has been turning this journey towards valley as facing a ‘daylight robbery’ with no control of any government agency since the people at helm in the centre had given ‘veto’ to the airlines to decide freely the fares and the facilities with no role left for the concerned ministry.
Truly travelling by air during such exigencies is an ordeal for the common man including those with limited resources but having the urgency to travel for the cause which is unalterable like examinations, medical exigency, or other important jobs, people have to allow their wallets to bleed as can be described by Hindi adage, ‘Marta Kya Na Karta’. No doubt, there is a train service available as an alternative but the landslides have also disrupted this mode limiting the options for those bound to travel out of Kashmir or to Kashmir in these testing times.
According to media reports, the air fares are touching skies reaching even higher than the planes which ferry passengers thus making the demand raised by the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) to cap the upper fare price has been appearing more meaningful and justified under present context.
It is sad and unfortunate that no one sitting at the helm has considered this demand and people have to suffer especially during the times when surface transport goes haywire like in the case these days, when highway link has been broken at many places forcing closure and disrupting traffic continuously for days together.
