Jammu and Kashmir will soon reopen for tourism; government to issue guidelines

Tourism is probably one of the worst-hit sectors by the pandemic lockdown worldwide. In India, every state and Union Territory is struggling. On similar lines, Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) is facing an unprecedented collapse, given more than a 10-month long closure it was in because of political reasons and then the COVID-19 outbreak. But now, the J&K administration has decided to reopen its parks and gardens to tourists to save the tourism sector.

The authorities have decided to reopen the tourist attraction and will soon issue a detailed guideline along with standard operating procedure (SoP). The information was shared by the Principal Secretary Planning of J&K Rohit Kansal on Twitter, where he wrote, "The Lieutenant Governor Girish Chandra Murmu issued the directions in a high-level meeting in Srinagar today".

J&K to reopen for tourism soon. Govt to issue detailed guidelines and SoP shortly : LG issues directions in high level meeting in Srinagar today @diprjk

— Rohit Kansal (@kansalrohit69) July 6, 2020

Baseer Ahmad Khan, Advisor to the Lieutenant Governor, also informed that all the public parks and gardens shall reopen from Wednesday. He also said that to visit these places tourists will have to follow the COVID-19 safety measures, such as wearing masks, maintaining social distancing and using sanitisers.
Yesterday, J&K recorded 246 new positive cases, which has taken the number of infections to 8675, according to the official data. The officials informed that over the past 24 hours, six COVID-19 positive people have died in Kashmir.

Among these new virus cases, 36 are from Jammu while 210 are from Kashmir. At present, the number of active cases is 3219 in the union territory. Till now, 5318 patients have recovered while 138 people have died.