STATE TIMES NEWS
Srinagar: Delegates of all G20 countries, barring China, arrived in Srinagar on Monday for the third working group meeting on tourism – a much-anticipated event for which authorities have made extensive security arrangements and spruced up the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir.
The delegates were given a traditional Indian welcome at the Srinagar airport with performances by local artistes, and the three-day meet kicked off with a side event on ‘Film Tourism for Economic Growth and Cultural Preservation’.
“All the G20 countries except China participated. This meeting had an overwhelming response. We had 61 delegates here. All countries except China are present here,” India’s G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant told reporters at a press conference.
Kashmir, where tourism is a major industry, is embarking on an exciting journey with the G20 event in the Valley and it will send a strong message against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, Union ministers who have been camping here to oversee the event said.
Stringent security arrangements have been made to ensure that the event concludes incident-free. The elite National Security Guard and Marine commandoes were helping police and paramilitary forces to secure the venues including the Sher-e-Kashmir International Convention Centre (SKICC), while the Boulevard Road around it has been made a no-go zone for three days.
There was a massive deployment of security forces on the route taken by the delegates and the Airport Road to Dalgate stretch.
Kant downplayed the absence of Chinese delegates, saying travel and tourism is a private sector activity and trade delegations from several countries had participated.
Officials said it is not that all invitees attend every meeting and some have skipped those held in other parts of the country also.
Asked about the negative travel advisories of many foreign countries on Jammu and Kashmir, India’s G20 Sherpa said the “officials from G7 countries were participating and they would not have come here if there were any such advisory”.