By IANS,
Srinagar : After more than 20 years, the Jammu and Kashmir government has decided to resume the light and sound shows at the Shalimar Garden and the Hari Parbat Fort here this year.
The shows were huge crowd pullers, attracting both tourists and locals, before the outbreak of militancy.
In addition to re-starting the light and sound shows, another major attraction this year for the tourists would be a laser lights show on the Dal Lake here every evening.
With normalcy returning in the once strife-torn Kashmir Valley, the government has been taking steps to woo more and more tourists and also to provide entertainment avenues to the locals.
After all the cinema halls and video parlours were shut under mounting militant pressure in the start of the 1990s, cable and satellite television were the only entertainment.
Addressing tour and travel operators who gathered here Saturday to chalk out preparations for the ensuing tourist season, junior Tourism Minister Nasir Aslam Wani said: “We had a successful tourist season last year. We will pool in efforts and put in place a joint mechanism to ensure better results this year.”
The minister said the tourism department will coordinate with airlines to shorten the stay of foreign visitors at the airport on their arrival.
Free porters would be provided to carry luggage of the tourists at the Srinagar International airport besides arrangements of additional buses to carry the tourists from the airport to the city.