It is good that Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) has started online helicopter ticket booking services for both Baltal and Pahalgam Yatra routes for this year's 52-day Shri Amarnath Yatra starting on June 29 as pilgrims intending to use this mode of transport were awaiting for this moment with extraordinary keenness as the demand usually is very high with people ensuring tickets well in time.
It is pertinent to mention that helicopter services are available for the Baltal route on the Neelgrath-Panjtarni-Neelgrath route, and for the Pahalgam route, it will be available on the Pahalgam-Panjtarni-Pahalgam route. However, bookings will be made on a first-come-first-serve basis directly to the devotees. Given past experiences where unscrupulous elements deceived innocent pilgrims by promising tickets and later denying them despite taking money, and in some cases selling tickets at exorbitant rates, especially in the year 2018, it is imperative that law enforcement agencies remain vigilant against any kind of malpractice. Such incidents have caused inconvenience and financial losses to pilgrims and have also tarnished the image of authorities who failed to maintain order.
This time, the one way fare from Pahalgam to Panjtarni has been fixed at Rs 4900, two way fare at Rs 9800, one way fare from Neelgrath to Panjtarni has been fixed at Rs 3250 and both way fare at Rs 6500. It is the duty of SASB and the government of J&K to popularize all these facts among the devotees so that no entity should indulge in any kind of fraud. As far as devotees are concerned, they should also remain cautious and must not give chance to any entity to dodge them in the name of providing helicopter tickets out of the way.
It is an open secret that during the Yatra many unsolicited travel touts surface to con the innocent people and therefore the cops should come up with a comprehensive strategy to stop such cheats from committing misdemeanor either in J&K or for that matter anywhere else in the country.
Keeping a check on the aforesaid malpractices is necessary to make the Yatra more convenient for the devotees as it becomes difficult to catch cheats once they have accomplished unprincipled acts of deceiving the people through illegitimate tactics.
