IAF aircraft carry 1377 Srinagar-Jammu-Srinagar passengers

Early Times Report

SRINAGAR, Jan 21: Even as weather improved and Srinagar-Jammu highway opened for traffic after several days of blockade, state government today arranged Army and IAF aircraft to carry nearly 1400 stranded passengers from Srinagar to Jammu and vice versa.

Even as nobody in the state government was available to share information with media, Early Times learned from informed sources of Airport Authority of India (AAI) that all the 19 routine flights operated from Srinagar Airport to carry passengers in Srinagar-Jammu-Delhi sector today. Sources said that equal number of scheduled flights from Delhi and Jammu landed at Srinagar Airport while carrying over 4,000 passengers.

Making a special arrangement for over 2,000 stranded passengers in Srinagar and Jammu, state government arranged IL-76 aircraft from Army besides a plane from IAF. Both the aircraft made a total of 10 sorties---six from Jammu and four from Srinagar. The big one carried average of 225 passengers on each sortie while as the smaller one carried 55.

There was huge hustle and bustle at Srinagar Airport where flights of the specially arranged planes operated till late tonight. Last flight of the IL-76 took off from Srinagar Airport at 11.00 pm. Divisional Commissioner of Kashmir, Asgar Hassan Samoon, visited the airport twice, first at 11.00 a.m and later at 8.00 p.m.

Even after around 827 passengers were carried to Jammu and 550 from Jammu to Srinagar by the specially arranged aircraft, nearly 400 passengers failed to get a chance to fly to Jammu. They were all accommodated at old TRC complex and few other hotels around for the night. The passengers were told that they would get a flight on Sunday but sources said that the government was planning to carry them free of cost through 40 SRTC buses from Srinagar to Jammu tomorrow.

While as today’s Srinagar-Jammu ticket on routine flights cost a whopping Rs 7,726/-, passengers were charged only Rs 500 each on the specially arranged flights.

Sources said that over a thousand stranded buses and trucks were heading for Srinagar today. They said that two-way traffic had been restored on the highway but only the passenger buses would be permitted to operate on Sunday. Sources said that no light motor vehicles would be allowed tomorrow from Srinagar to Jammu. Opening of the highway after five-day-long blockade came as a big relief to the people in Valley who are facing acute shortage of essential commodities, particularly LPG.

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