SRINAGAR: National Conference (NC) has questioned the government’s claim that

more than 1.60 crore tourists visited Jammu and Kashmir in 2022 and termed it a “propaganda”

The NC was apparently reacting to the claim made by the government during the third Tourism G20 Working Group where they said they hosted over 18 million tourists last year, which was unparalleled since Independence.

NC said it takes a little bit of analysis to make sense of these numbers.

“The government has suddenly come up with this claim that for the first time since Independence some 1.60 crore tourists visited Jammu and Kashmir. We have been in the government and never able to get more than 14-15, maybe 16 lakh, tourists in a year. What the hell did we do wrong!?,” the NC tweeted

“Also, where do these tourists stay? Because we haven’t seen any new hotel, new accommodations. Yes, some people have converted their houses into guest houses and home stays. So where did these 1.6 crore tourists stay?,” the party added.
“But then, when we start looking at the numbers, we realise that actually all the government has done is reverse a previous decision, which is that the previous governments didn’t count yatris [pilgrims] as tourists. Hardly any yatris actually perform the activity of a tourist. Now the government has started to count Yatris as tourists too, and hence the inflated number! Easy to juggle with the numbers when you change the entire methodology!,” NC said.

On Tuesday, J&K Lt Governor Manoj Sinha said a record number of 18 million tourists visited Jammu and Kashmir in the last year and the tourism sector made a 7 percent contribution to the Gross Domestic Product. (UNI)