Foreigners organize ski courses in Gulmarg

Threaten livelihood of local guides, instructors, agents
Abid Khan
Gulmarg, Feb 5: The foreign group of skiers are providing free training to tourists who throng to Gulmarg these days from different parts country thus threatening the livelihood hundreds of local ski guides, instructors and agents.
The foreign skiers group from different countries under the banner of New Zeeland Ski Club of Kashmir (NZ-SCK) started their activities in Gulmarg from January 13 and since then is providing free coaching to the tourists both local and outsiders who throng to Gulmarg for skiing. The group is providing free coaching and till now has trained more than 200 skiers. They have the major plans for future and want to open ski school in Gulmarg.
This act by foreign ski group has raised many concerns among the local folk whose livelihood is associated with skiing. The instructors, ski guides and travel agents of the area have accused the group of snatching their livelihood.
A local ski-instructor of Tangmarg identifying himself as Aatif Ali said that he thinks his livelihood is under threat due to the activities of this group.
He said that Gulmarg snow is food of Tangmarg people and almost whole area is dependent on it to earn their livelihood.
He said, “The group came here on pretext of being tourists but from mid January they are running their coaching class. Due to that our livelihood has got severe setback as the tourists prefer free ski training”. “The tourists prefer foreigners then the locals for training and if that is free then that is bonus and that is what this group is doing here in Gulmarg from last more than three weeks.”
He said that he doesn’t who has given them the permission run courses in Gulmarg and if this will go unabated then the time is near when we will see that whole Tangmarg people would on the verge of starvation.
“Each year we earn good bucks from ski-guiding and coaching to tourists and that money we use for whole year. But this year our business has got huge effect due to the activities of this group and we don’t know how we will sustain our livelihood through out the year” he said. “If in three weeks they have trained only 200 tourists in skiing free of cost. For them that is nothing but for us the money from training and guiding those tourists would have amounted in lacks for us.”
Another ski-guide namely Irfan Shah who earn his livelihood by teaching skiing to tourists accused the group of snatching their bud and butter.
He said, “If their actives will go on unabated then the time will come when we will be fighting for our survival as we are solely dependent on Gulmarg.”
He accused the group of fooling people by organizing free caching class in order to save custom duty on the equipment they are bringing for there purpose.
He said, “The group is running its activities in nexus with one local guy. He is helping them to promote their class by luring tourists towards them. They are giving free training this year because they have hidden motive behind it as they want their ski equipments worth crores of rupees to get custom duty rebate”. “ For running ski-school Government gives custom and excise duty rebate on importing equipment and they want that.”
He said that in year 2000 Israel snow boarder, Edo did same thing by teaching snowboarding to locals and brought large equipment from outside on which he got custom duty rebate. The situation is that presently he is doing monopoly in Gulmarg by organizing his own groups, he said. “ He brings groups on his own and rent them out his own equipments there by giving no benefit to locals”.
He said, “Basically they are running travel agency and are trying to create monopoly in Gulmarg by managing all things themselves”. “From bringing tourists here to providing them equipments they want to do all things themselves there by earning all money themselves.”
If this thing will go without any monitoring and hindrance from officials we will launch agitation against it on the pattern of Amarnath land agitation, said a group ski-guides.
Few days back on ski-slope the foreign group has heated arguments with the ski-instructors of department like Youth Sports and Services and IISM.
“While I was training my students the group came to me and said to stop the course in order to pave way for them to train. I refused by saying that we have got permission from Tourism department to organize came and we are running course according to official timings while they are without permission” said Youth Services and Sports instructor on condition of anonymity. “They threatened me of severe consequences but I did not listened to them.”Despite repeated attempts Director Tourism was not available for comment.