Shimla:
Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC) president Virbhadra Singh on Tuesday expressed concern over suspension of Kingfisher and Air India flights to the state for past four months and made a fresh request to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to resume the flights immediately.
In a letter written to the Prime Minister, he said that this prolonged suspension of the air flights has not only affected the tourist flow to the state but also resulted in loss of business, an official release said in Shimla.
Singh said that Shimla was at present the only state capital without any air link that has adversely affected general public, corporate and government officers travelling on official and private business.
The Manali Hoteliers Association has reportedly written to the Union Tourism secretary seeking air connectivity to the state, but their efforts have yielded no results, he wrote in the letter.
The HPCC president said that in case flights were not restarted, the tourism industry would suffer huge losses with the 620 hotels in Manali drawing crowds during the entire Christmas and New Year celebrations.
Some hotel owners complained that they had started getting telephone calls for the cancellation of bookings for Christmas-New year celebrations due to the absence of flights, he said.
The tourism industry in Dharamsala is likely to be hit as several disciples of the Dalai Lama come to Shimla during winter to seek his blessings and listen to his teachings, he added.