(TibetanReview.net, Mar22’24) —Beijing denied access to Mt Kailash in Tibet to nearly 50,000 Indian pilgrims seeking to travel there through Nepal last year and the situation does not seem likely to change, given the state of Sino-India relations, reported the kathmandupost.com Mar 22.
It was hoped that after Beijing opened the Hilsa border point, the gateway to Kailash Manasarovar, last April, the worst was over. However, this was dashed when the Chinese authorities in Tibet restricted Indian pilgrims’ movement through the border. As a result, many entrepreneurs in Nepal’s tourism industry were forced to close, leaving many people unemployed, the report said.
Even after Beijing reopened some border points to Nepal allowing people and trade movement, it has imposed restrictions, especially for Indian pilgrims, which many say is the fallout of the growing India-China geopolitical rivalry, the report said.
The restrictions were stated to have ruined the million-dollar business of scores of hotels, tour operators, porters, helicopter and airline companies.
Around 15,000 tourists used to visit Kailash Manasarovar through the Hilsa border before the Covid pandemic. The border was closed for four years due to the pandemic and reopened in April last year.
Kailash Manasarovar Yatra is one of the most lucrative tour packages for Nepali tour operators and Hilsa is the major point of entry for it, the report said.
“We are expecting our business to be zero this year too. There is no sign of opening the border even as the season is to start after a week,” Bijay Lama, a hotel entrepreneur, has said.
Before the Covid pandemic, there used to be a huge movement of Indian tourists on the Hilsa border, Karma Lama, another tourism entrepreneur, has said. “As a result, from porters to hotel operators and from airlines to local groceries used to be busy from early morning.”
“We incurred heavy losses when the border was closed. But despite the reopening last year, the tourist movement has been almost zero,” he has said.
The report cited tour operators as saying that last year Chinese authorities in Tibet denied access to nearly 50,000 Indian pilgrims who had booked for the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra that included journeying through different border points, including the Kathmandu-Lhasa flight.
In 2023, Nepal welcomed an all-time high number of Indian visitors, crossing the 300,000 mark for the first time. The major draw was the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra. But they were forced to reschedule their tour package and visit, instead, Nepal’s holy places like Muktinath and Lumbini.
“Until China allows Indian pilgrims, there is little likelihood of tourists returning and business bouncing back,” Yakyung Lama, a guard at Manasarovar Hotel in Hilsa, has said, adding he has been deployed to look after the hotel alone as there were no visitors.