Snowfall fails to attract Bollywood to Kashmir

Even after two heavy snowfalls in last and current months, there are no visible tourism activities taking place in the Valley. People in the trade are surprised that even the Bollywood has been avoiding coming here despite such early winter snow.

In a lone case, Arjun Rampal was in Gulmarg during the snowfall, he tweeted on Wednesday that he wished to stay there forever and praised the local hospitality and the scenic beauty of Kashmir. Rampal was in Kashmir for the shooting of TV serial “The Final Call” based on a famous novel “I Will Go With You”. He has also praised Kashmiri ‘Wazwan’ in his series of tweets.

Most of the Bollywood crews have avoided coming to Kashmir to shoot the snowfall and the post-snow covered places like Pahalgam and Gulmarg. “We were hav- ing many queries about the possible shooting even from some South film crews. But none of them has come to Kashmir so far,” said Junaid Shafi of Swift Tour and Travels operating in Kashmir.

Meanwhile, Kashmir valley and Ladakh region are reeling under severe cold conditions with no respite. Although the days are sunny, the night temperatures are falling to -11.5 in Gulmarg. Cold conditions worsened across Kashmir after the fresh snowfall on Friday. An official told the media that Kargil town is recording from the past few days as low as -10.2 and Drass as low as -19.7.