JOIN USWith heavy rush of unregistered Amarnath yatris making way to Pahalgam and Baltal base camps, Jammu and Kashmir tourism department has started issuing on-the-spot-permissions to tourists and pilgrims.
“In order to facilitate the tourists and locals to visit to Pahalgam and Sonamarg, the department of tourism has started on-the-spot-permissions at tourist reception centre Srinagar,” an official release of the tourism department said.
Official sources said the decision to issue permission letters to tourists for visiting Pahalgam and Sonamarg was taken as large number of unregistered Amarnath pilgrims were reaching these places as tourists are trying to proceed for the yatra.
More than 23,000 unregistered pilgrims or those with registration for later dates were turned back from various access control gates in the first two days of the yatra.
Fourth batch
Over 2,000 pilgrims left the Jammu base camp for their onward journey to the cave shrine of Amarnath in south Kashmir amid tight security arrangements.
The fourth batch of pilgrims, consisting of 2,066 devotees left from Bhagwati Nagar base camp in Jammu at around 4:44 am, police said, adding that the convoy included 80 vehicles.
The batch included 1,507 men, 399 women and 35 children, they said.
So far, over 11,500 devotees have paid obeisance at the holy shrine, with 7,806 devotees heading for the cave from Jammu base camp till Saturday.