After nearly 78 years, Kashmir Valley has finally got connected with rest of the country as a specially-designed Vande Bharat Express train arrived at the Srinagar station in the Nowgam area on the city outskirts from Katra in Jammu and then moved to Budgam on Saturday. Officials declared the trail run as successful. The train is specially designed to operate seamlessly in Jammu and Kashmir’s challenging winter conditions. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to flag off the train from Katra, as the commissioner of railway safety has given the green signal for running the train service on the Katra-Baramulla section. The date of the flagging-off ceremony is yet to be announced.
While the direct train service from New Delhi to Kashmir will undoubtedly increase the tourist footfall here, It will be a big opening for the horticulture sector. Fruits like cherry and strawberry, plums, apricot are the ones with least shelf life will reach Mandis well in time. Every year, the orchardists depended solely on the mercy of weather and the condition of the Srinagar-Jammu highway to transport their fruit to bigger Mandis. Most of the times they would suffer losses as due to closure of highway the fruit would rot in the trucks. However, with direct train to New Delhi, horticulture sector is likely to benefit the most as fruit from here would reach outside Mandis without any delays and thus the growers would benefit a lot.
The train service will boost tourism as intending tourists will now have a viable alternative to travel to Kashmir. From past few years, it has been witnessed that during peak season, the airlines charge hefty amounts and thus impacting the tourist arrivals. With direct train from Delhi to Kashmir, the hegemony of the airlines will be over and more and more people from rest of the country would be able to afford Kashmir visit that would give flip to the tourism industry here.
However, while people of the Valley were very excited to welcome train services between New Delhi and Srinagar, some reports, besides the time table issued by Northern Railways, has somewhat, dampened the excitement as the timetable suggests train services between Katra and Srinagar and vice versa only. Reports suggest that trains either coming from Srinagar or returning to New Delhi will stop at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Railway Station in Katra, Jammu, where passengers will have to board another train to complete their journey. As per the report, all passengers will have to deboard and exit the station at Katra, get their luggage re-scanned at the departure lounge before boarding the train stationed at platform number 1 for their onward journey. The same train will not continue to further destinations, and passengers will have to wait for the next train to proceed. Officials have cited security concerns as the reason behind this arrangement.
If the reports are correct, there will be no direct train service between Srinagar and Delhi and that is what is baffling the people of Kashmir Valley. They were expecting a direct train to have a hassle-free journey. Now that, if passengers have to deboard at Katra, go for another security check and then catch the next train to further destination, the travel becomes for hassled. If a train travel to Jammu takes 6 to 7 hours, why should anyone from Srinagar chose the train when he/she can drive to Jammu in just four hours. Security should be the priority but logically a direct train from Srinagar to Delhi or Jammu and vice versa could be more secure than changing trains enroute.
