The people in Jammu and Kashmir must be repenting their decision to elect a leader as their chief minister who instead of carrying forward the central government’s initiatives to bring back tourists to Valley along with peace and prosperity is giving statements which might offend the visitors as Omar Abdullah wants value based tourism and not volume based.
This statement by none other than the Chief Minister of the UT of J&K is fully loaded with the negativity because instead of asking the stakeholders in J&K to prepare for giving a lifetime experience to the visiting tourists, and coming up with a comprehensive plan to counter the difficulties which the region faces due to unprecedented rush of tourists, he simply wanted limited number of tourists especially in Valley, who have the potential to pay more. By rejecting the idea of a big number of tourists visiting J&K, the CM has simply surrendered as he said that roads and other facilities get choked due to heavy influx of tourists.
This is a typical mentality, because being the chief minister of this beautiful region, which has been termed as Paradise by the great travelers of the world in the past, he should have sat with the planners and have suggested solutions to overcome difficulties rather than wishing that the number of tourists should be contained. He should have come up with plans to make flyovers, widen roads, give permissions for new hotels, restaurants and other facilities to cater to the needs of volumes of tourists who have turned towards J&K after the herculean efforts of the central government led by PM Narendra Modi. But the logic which Omar has been applying is awkward and depicts ‘slacker’ attitude as he don’t want to take any positive initiative in the matter. Instead he seems more interested in political gains rather than taking pain to help J&K become fully ready to take care of any numbers of tourists visiting the region to feel the bounties which nature God has given to this one of the top tourist destinations of the world.
All said and done, Omar Abdullah’s approach advocating ‘value-based tourism’ over ‘volume-based tourism’ simply indicates that the man steering J&K badly lacks vision and initiative, and with such a mindset of the helmsman, there is a every possibility that things achieved in the recent past as far as return of normalcy is concerned can face a jolt.
