By IANS,
New Delhi : Transport problems due to fog and delays in issuing visas are creating a logistical nightmare for the organisers of the DSC Jaipur International Literature Festival.
“Europe is rescheduling flights because of fog and many arrivals for the festival have either been delayed or cancelled. The chill is playing a spoilsport along with visas, which are taking time to arrive,” Sanjoy Roy, host and producer of the festival, told IANS.
Citing an instance of delay, Roy said: “A writer from Pakistan who missed his flight Monday morning had to travel to Lahore by road, from thereon to Wagah and then to Amritsar, from where he will fly to the capital.” However, all the writers from Pakistan have received their visas.
New Delhi-based writer William Dalrymple said: “One of the problems after the David Headley episode is procuring visas for foreign authors.”
“If the visas are not processed on time, the writers may not be able to take part in the festival,” he said.
The normally four-hour drive from New Delhi to Jaipur is taking almost seven hours, Roy said, as a “result of which organisers are finding it difficult to take writers, who have flown into New Delhi, to the venue”.
The fact that the festival is bigger this year with “many more authors and foreign delegates” is adding to the organisers’ woes.
“We lost all the travel logistics of the writers after a break-in at our office Sunday,” Roy said.