Monopoly houses seldom allow an opportunity to make quick gains slip out of their grasp. Crises for majority invariably is used an opportunity by the select monopoly houses to make maximum gains.
As the agitation by farmers of North India is threatening to continue indefinitely, problems of a common man get aggravated day by day.
Besides a major disruption in movement, prices of essential commodities, including daily use items like grocery, milk and poultry products, fruit, and vegetables, have started shooting up.
Road transport and rail services, too, are getting adversely hit. Of all, air passengers, especially short distance travellers, are finding themselves in a piquant situation.
Since they cannot travel by road because of restrictions imposed by the Haryana Government on many national and state highways, including all important Grand Trunk Road, the only choice left with them is to fly from various destinations in Punjab and Chandigarh to the union capital by air.
Seeking a huge escalation in demand for air travel, both routine and emergency, the airlines have hiked up air fares astronomically.
An air ticket for travel from Chandigarh to New Delhi, which ordinarily would cost between Rs 2700 and Rs 4500 is now going for anything between 15000 and 22000. These prices are not for business or first class but for the economy class.
Same is the case with Amritsar-Delhi route. The fares for outward journey have exorbitantly been hiked.
This is the season when many overseas Punjabis come home not only to attend the family functions, including weddings, but also frequent their villages and hometowns to watch or participate in kabaddi tournaments, rural sports festivals, traditional and seasonal festivals like Lohri and Basant Panchami.
Since their demand for more international connectivity of Amritsar and Chandigarh to various destinations in Europe (England, Germany, Italy) and North America (Canada and USA) have met with no immediate success, they are forced to travel from their ancestral hometowns to Delhi by Road.
Now, when the Government has resorted to strong arm tactics of blocking all major National and State Highways passing through Haryana to the union capital, they are left at the mercy of the domestic airlines to fly them out of Punjab to the Union Capital.
“Farmers are not stopping us, but it is the State, through its repressive measures, obstructing our journeys from Punjab to Delhi,” says Kartar Singh, a farmer, who has made Canada his second home.
“What do we do. We must be back in time to resume our jobs back home at the end of our Indian holiday. But the airlines are ruthless. Either we do not get seats to fly to Delhi or forced to pay exorbitant fares for a short journey. Neither the Union Government nor its air traffic regulatory authority – Director-General of Civil Aviation – is doing anything to stop this exploitation,” he complains.
His is not an isolated case. He is a symbolic representative of thousands of other overseas Punjabis and others who are required to travel, both within India and outside, on both personal and professional reasons.
Is anyone listening?
(Prabhjot Singh is a veteran journalist with over three decades of experience of 14 years with Reuters News and 30 years with The Tribune Group, covering a wide spectrum of subjects and stories. He has covered Punjab and Sikh affairs for more than three decades besides covering seven Olympics and several major sporting events and hosting TV shows.)
