Since independence, transporters like Ravi Baru have ferried passengers from the Kashmir Valley to the rest of the country.
Kashmir’s only road link to the mainland, Jammu is also its gateway to the rest of the country. But a new direct railway link from Kashmir to mainland India is likely to lessen the Valley’s dependence on this town in the plains.
Baru, who owns a private passenger transport company, is worried.
“Jammu was the only connecting road link between Kashmir and the rest of India,” the 66-year-old said. “But with this rail line, why would anyone want to waste time in Jammu? They would get on a train in Srinagar and deboard in New Delhi.”
Baru’s company owns a fleet of 8-10 buses that ply from Jammu to Delhi, Ludhiana, Amritsar and Jaipur.
“If Kashmiris don’t come to Jammu, we are finished,” he said.
Train to ‘India’
On January 7 and 8, railway authorities are all set to conduct a final inspection of the 17-km-long Katra-Reasi patch of the railway line in Jammu – the last link in the sprawling train network that will run from Baramulla in north Kashmir to Srinagar in the south and, finally, Udhampur in Jammu.
The first train on this 272 km rail route is expected to be inaugurated in the coming weeks – the end of a nearly four decade-long wait to connect Kashmir Valley to the country’s railway grid.
That will be a moment of triumph for New Delhi, with much being made of India finally being able to connect Kashmir to mainland India.
But for a change, Jammu, which is often seen as the opposite of the Valley in its political choices, is unhappy with this “integration”.
The rail link, say transporters and hoteliers, will end up bypassing Jammu.
“Sixty percent of our customer base is from Kashmir,” said Lucky Charak, a transporter at Jammu’s famous BC Road junction from where at least 80-100 buses leave for different parts of the country every day. “During winters, around 80%-90% of our passengers travelling to various other parts of the country are from Kashmir.”
In a recent meeting with the Union rail minister and two members of Parliament from Jammu, representatives of Jammu’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry flagged their concern. “With the train reaching Srinagar, the economy of Jammu is going to be affected badly,” said a press release issued by the chamber.
A double whammy
Business leaders and representatives in Jammu point out that the two core sectors of hotels and transport are going to bear the brunt.
The latter, particularly, has taken a hit since July 2021, when Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha scrapped the annual ‘darbar move’ – an exercise harking back to the rule of the Dogra kings.
Every winter, the government and the entire administrative machinery of the erstwhile state would shift from the summer capital of Srinagar in the Kashmir Valley to the winter capital of Jammu in the plains. As a result, roughly 10,000 government employees and their families from Kashmir would pour into Jammu in November and leave six months later.
“It was good business for Jammu because Kashmiris preferred to shop here,” said Sanjay Gupta, president of the Jammu’s famous Raghunath Bazar Businessmen Association. “It was also an avenue for cultural exchange. It’s so good to see people from Kashmir coming to your shop after every six months. It’s a kind of a bond.”
In July 2021, however, arguing that it would save the government Rs 200 crore every year, the union territory ended the tradition.
In response, the Jammu’s business community called for a “Jammu bandh” to protest against the “atrocities of the government on the business class.”
This was the first expression of dissent from the Jammu’s business community since August 5, 2019, when the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre split the state into two union territories and scrapped its autonomy.
Gupta said the administration failed to look at the larger picture. “In order to save [the government’s] Rs 200 crore, businesses in Jammu lost thousands of crores,” he said.
Pawan Gupta, a hotelier in Jammu city also rued the losses caused by the end of the ‘darbar move’. “During these six months, hardly any hotels in Jammu had vacant rooms,” said Gupta, who is also the president of the All Jammu Hotels and Lodges Association. “Many of our hotels were rented by the government for six months straight to accommodate the families of the employees.”
With train services directly connecting Srinagar with the rest of the country, more trouble is in store, businesspersons fear.
Pawan Gupta added: “Ninety percent of our clientele is Kashmiri. Most of them travel by road out of Kashmir while going to other states and would usually prefer to stay overnight in Jammu.”
Now, a Kashmiri traveler will skip Jammu altogether, he said. “After the train service begins, barely anyone travelling from Kashmir will stop in Jammu unless they have emergency work here.”
The missing link
The 272-km Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail link project was sanctioned in 1994-95 at an estimated cost of Rs 2,500 crore.
Given the geographical challenges of building railway lines in a geographically challenging and seismically active mountainous region, the project saw many alterations as a result of which, the total cost ballooned to more than Rs 37,000 crore.
It was accorded the status of a ‘National Project’ in 2002 – where 90% of the funds are provided as an assistance by the Centre.
The first section of this line was inaugurated in October 2009, linking Qazigund in Kulgam district with Baramulla.
While this helped link the north and south of the valley, Kashmir’s rail network still remained separated from the national railway grid.
In 2013 and 2014, two more sections – 18-km-long Banihal-Qazigund section in Kashmir and 25-km-long Udhampur-Katra section in Jammu – were commissioned, lessening the gap between Jammu and Kashmir’s rail networks.
The 17 km Katra-Reasi stretch, which links both these sections, is the final piece of the puzzle. It is scheduled to be inspected by the Commission of Railway Safety on January 7 and 8.
“After the CRS inspection, they will give their observations or some technical inputs and we will comply with those inputs,” said Himanshu Shekhar Upadhyay, chief public relations officer of Northern Railway. “Only after compliance will we get authorisation to run trains.”
Development or loss?
It is not the first time, however, that improved railway connectivity in Jammu has cost local businesses.
Until 2004, the northern end of the Indian railways was Jammu city. That year, a 53-km-long railway line between Jammu and Udhampur was thrown open to the public.
A decade later, a 25-km-long railway stretch connecting Udhampur with the pilgrimage town of Katra was opened.
Every year, nearly one crore pilgrims visit the holy cave shrine of Mata Vaishno Devi atop Trikuta mountains in Katra, some 43 km ahead of Jammu.
Till 2014, Jammu city was a base camp for pilgrims travelling from across the length and breadth of the country intending to visit the shrine.
“We felt the impact on our businesses when the train went all the way to Katra directly,” said Sanjay Gupta of the Raghunath Bazar Businesses Association. “Before, I used to employ around 6-7 salesmen at my shop. Now, I have only three.”
Pawn Gupta, the hotelier, claimed his business “nosedived by around 90%” with the train to Katra.
The business community fears that the government’s focus has shifted to Katra, leaving Jammu behind. Take the case of the 669 km expressway being built by the National Highway Authority of India joining Delhi to Amritsar and Katra. Coming up at an estimated cost of Rs 40,000 crore, this highway will bypass Jammu city altogether.
“Once the expressway is completed, Jammu will be simply out of the equation,” said Gupta, the hotelier.
‘Attract people to Jammu’
Unsettled by their prospects, Jammu’s business industry has been pushing the newly elected government and the Lieutenant Governor administration to develop Jammu as a tourist destination.
“Whether the government develops it or not, the Valley will always get tourists,” said Sanjay Gupta, the trader from Raghunath Bazar. But that’s not the case with Jammu, he added. “Our summer is very bad. No tourist will want to come to Jammu unless there’s an intervention from the government. Jammu needs to have man-made tourist destinations to attract people.”
Chief minister Omar Abdullah has promised to do both – restore the darbar move and backed the idea of developing Jammu as a tourist destination.
“If we can encourage even 15% of pilgrims visiting Mata Vaishno Devi to explore other attractions in Jammu, we could see an influx of 15 lakh tourists – a figure comparable to Kashmir’s peak tourism years,” Abdullah said during an event in Jammu last month.
Hotelier Pawan Gupta is sceptical of these plans coming true, and resigned to more drastic consequences. “If a city is ruined, it’s the responsibility of the government to rehabilitate those affected.”
