Long queues leave tourists high and dry

AURANGABAD: Long weekends translate to chaotic tourist spots. But the city, which boasts of world-famous Ajanta and Ellora caves, was marred by gross mismanagement by officials with foreign tourists returning without viewing the heritage sites due to long queues.
The tourism industry has blamed the Aurangabad circle of Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) for bad planning despite being aware of the rush during such weekends.
"The government had assured the Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) that all the ASI monuments would be provided with a separate counter and queue facility to the foreign tourists, who have ticket in category-A Rs 500 and in category-B Rs 200. They also increased the entry fees by two-folds for foreign tourists with effect from April 1, 2016, which has effected the number of tourists," said Jaswant Singh, president, Aurangabad Tourism Promoters' Guild.
"The tourism industry has demanded separate ticket counter for foreign tourists, especially when they are charged hefty entry fees as compared to domestic tourists. We witnessed this from August 13-15, when the city witnessed huge rush of foreign tourists and many of them left the city without visiting the monuments as they were unable to wait for hours in serpentine queues," said Singh.
He added, "Despite knowing that the city witnesses a huge footfall during such occasions and the crowd shifts to other heritage sites with Ajanta caves closed on Monday, the ASI did not make any efforts to offer better services."
Tourist guide Ratnakar Shevale seconded Singh and said, "The ASI could have opened more ticket counters so that the long waiting hours could have been halved. The ASI offers only one ticket counter which is open for all tourists. There is no separate ticket counter for foreign tourists. They not only had to wait for more than two hours in the queue for tickets but also had to undergo a tedious three-round scanning procedure which cost them over an hour."
"Some tourists from Japan, who went through these procedures at Ellora caves and Daulatabad Fort did not have time to spend another three hours waiting to catch a glimpse of Bibi-ka-Maqbara. They had to rush to the airport to catch their flight and ultimately dropped the idea of viewing the monument," said Shevale, adding that around two lakh tourists visited during the weekend.
"Around 25 to 30% of them had to return due to lack of time and mismanagement at the sites," said Mangesh Rathod, another guide.
However, talking on opening an extra ticket counter, the deputy superintendent of Aurangabad circle ASI Shivakant Bajpai said, "Due to centralised system the entire process has to be revised to set up extra counters for a temporary period and hence it is not possible."