Heavy Rush of Tourist in Dharamshala chocked the roads, hotels on New Year Eve

Dharamshala, January 1, 2017: A Sunday on the 1st day of the new year and a call from the weathermen that it may snow on the important hill stations of Himachal, attracted a large number of tourists on the 31st December night in Shimla Manali, Dalhousie and Dharamshala, from Punjab, J&K, Haryana and even Delhi.
This sudden plan of the tourists not even choked the highways leading to these destinations but also over crowded the sites to discourage a large number.
Many of them did reach the destinations in the early morning and a large lot returned back without checking in due to non availability of the hotel rooms .
The public heading towards Dharamshala –Mecleodganj were largly from Punjab were either stuck in heavy jams at Mubarkpur, Nangal, Bharwaain, Jasoor and Gaggle or at upper Dharamshala due to moore and more cars and tourist buses on the roads.
Nanak Chand a spokes person of the Himachal Road Transport Corporation HRTC said, “ our daily buses to and from Chandigarh,Delhi Shimla Manali and other places in the nabouring states run at snail pace and reached the destinations about 4 to 6 hours late due to the jams of new year tourist vehicles on 31st December.”
Many of the visitors spent their new year eve night in their own vehicle in Dharamshala/Mecleodganj or on the other areas of highway before starting the back journey on 1st January 1, 2017, due to road jams or non availability of rooms.
Jitender from Jallandhar, Divesh from Bathinda, Naveen Garg from Ludhiana, Bitoo Singh from Ambala, Raj Kakkar from Chandigarh are the few to mention.
After a sagging impact of demonetization, the tourist were almost vanished from Dharamshala /Mecleodganj and the hoteliers of this city were complaining several times about this. Ram Swroop a hotel owner said recently that even the advanced bookings, which was a slogging period on the tourism industry in Dharamsala for the past about two months. But the New Year's Eve has turned fortunes. McLeodganj, the main tourist hub in Dharamsala region, is abuzz with activity. All hotels are packed to capacity and restaurants are arranging new parties.
Sanjeev Gandhi, general secretary, Hotel Association, upper Dharamsala, said earlier, the hotels used to be packed for at least 10 days on the New Year's Eve. The business was not as expected this Christmas, but the weekend has proved profitable," he said.
Ramesh , who runs a hotel and restaurant in Dharamshala , said a large number of youngsters had turned up at Dharamsala. "We hope that the tourists will stay till the first week of next year," he said.
Many Visitors were seen parking their vehicles, enjoying and dancing by road sides even on Sunday.
However, the snow still eludes the Dhauladhars. Due to less snow and rain in the past three months, water shortage is being reported from various areas of Dharamsala.