Amritsar district limps back to normalcy after 5-night blackout

With no blackout last night, the border district is limping back to normalcy. Earlier, blackout was imposed in the district for the last five nights after neighbouring Pakistan launched aggressive drone and missile attacks.

Rajpreet Singh, a farmer from Lopoke, said yesterday was the first night after five days that the power supply was not snapped. With paddy sowing period round the corner, farmers had to make arrangements for irrigating their fields. All proposed plans were held up keeping in view the uncertainty of the situation. A day after the announcement of the ceasefire between India and Pakistan, drones were sighted in the border district, prompting the administration to impose blackout. Last night the administration asked people to self-impose a blackout. Officials said power supply would not be discontinued. Everything went smoothly thereafter.

Hospitality players rued that tourists continue to remain elusive and it would take several weeks for them to return. Tourism, the backbone of the local industry, offers employment in hotels and to tour and travel guides and other stakeholders.

Gurinder Singh Johal, chairman of the India Association of Tour Operators, anticipates that the domestic tourists would arrive in June and July, when the region had summer vacation in educational institutions. He said international tourists would arrive here in October and thereafter.

He said tourists from the southern peninsula, including Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, used to visit this part of the country during the corresponding period in previous years. Since Amritsar falls in the tourist circuit spanning across both northern mountainous states of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, the loss was similar across the region, he said.

He said visitors from Europe and the USA visiting the tourist sites of the North India were overlooking Amritsar and Chandigarh. He said they were winding up their tours after visiting Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Ranthambore and Rishikesh.

He expressed his disappointment with the Punjab Government not paying any attention to the hospitality industry which was passing through a rough phase.

Harjit Singh, a hotelier, said, “Hundreds of hotels have not received any customers all these days, while their expenditure continues to rise.” He demanded financial aid from the government to get hotel owners out of the morass. He said it would take several weeks for tourists to regain their confidence to return to this part of the country.

Amritsar