The Srinagar Airport is proudly called ‘INTERNATIONAL Airport”, simply for the reasons fights from this airport are run to some international destinations, but is that all it takes to earn that title? Does the Shiekh Ul Alam Airport have the standards that are expected from an international airport? Hardly So! Having been handling almost 90 flights a day in peak season, from a single integrated terminal of just 25000 sq m. , the Srinagar airport is no more or less than a hyper busy Bus station! Knowingly Kashmir being a tourist destination & owing to poor visibility during winters, flights at Srinagar Airport get delayed or canceled, with no proper information to the passengers, who are then made to wait at the airport for hours together, with no seating arrangements in place! The most impacted are the elderly people and medical patients, who continue standing as they incessantly wait for some news about their flight, it may also not be the only Airport in the world, facing poor visibility issues & huge inconvenience to passengers, but let’s not conveniently assume that there’s any other Airport which is subjected to such a mess with attention from the Authorities.
This being an Airport at India’s most prominent tourist destination should have received top most attention and been equipped with modern technology to overcome visibility issues and facilities for passenger convenience in situations of weather induced delays. Inside the airport building too, there’s always a mess, with an acute shortage of trolleys, not easily available for the convenience of incoming & outgoing passengers! You will find more porters than passengers, standing around everywhere at the Airport holding trolleys, making trolley access possible only if a passenger hires a porter! Such overtly visible corruption doesn’t happen at any other Airport! These porters appear to be volunteers and approach you as if they are from the Airport to assist you, but will finally charge you with no rates fixed for a trolley service, which you can most easily manage by yourself, if Trolleys are conveniently available. Besides, there is nothing that makes Srinagar Airport special, as far as facilities are concerned; one needs to pay to everything. When you come out of the Airport, a transport company has placed cabs of their choice like Innovas, available in the queue on number. There are no small or a cheaper cabs available for a single pax or 2 passengers, you will have to necessarily take the cab which is in the queue on number & pay the same rate which 5-6 people together would have to pay for a bigger cab for a particular distance as decided by some unregistered Official sitting in the office with these transporters. You are left with no choice but to take a big cab & pay more!
(The Author is a TV debater and a Social Activist. The views, opinions, facts, assumptions, presumptions and conclusions of the expressed in this article are author’s own and aren’t necessarily in accord with the views of “Kashmir Horizon”.)
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