Imphal, Aug. 3: If you want to travel from here to Guwahati in an emergency, first catch a Calcutta-bound flight and then get a connecting flight, that is if you are lucky, to reach your destination the same day.

This “shocking” experience was encountered recently by Ch. Priyohini and M. Rajesh from Manipur who spent Rs 16,500 each and at least five more hours to travel from Imphal to Guwahati via Calcutta.

The two could not get a seat on the Imphal-Guwahati flight at the last minute because of the rush for air tickets. People are opting for air travel because frequent blockades and boycotts have made travelling by surface transport to places outside Manipur almost impossible. This has resulted in the rush and high fares, making it impossible to reach one’s destination on time at times.

The Imphal-Guwahati bus that plies on the Imphal-Dimapur highway costs Rs 600 and one can reach Guwahati the same day. But this route has been out of bounds since April 11 midnight when the All Naga Students Association, Manipur, imposed an economic blockade. The blockade was lifted on June 18 afternoon but bus and truck operators have boycotted the highway since, alleging extortion.

There is uncertainty along the Imphal-Jiribam highway also with frequent landslides disrupting traffic. Even if there is no roadblock because of landslides, breakdown of vehicles or protests, it takes four days to travel the 222km from Imphal to Jiribam because of bad road conditions.

Priyohini and Rajesh had to go to Guwahati for a training programme and as the schedule was intimated at the eleventh hour, they had to take whatever means of transport was available. “We had to reach Guwahati by any means and we could not use the road. The Imphal-Guwahati flights were also fully booked. As there was no other way, we had to travel first to Calcutta and then to Guwahati. We spent more than Rs 16,000 each one way. It was shocking,” Rajesh said. Besides, on a direct flight they would have reached in 45 minutes. But in the hopping flight, not only did they reach Calcutta at 7pm, having left Imphal at 12.30pm, they had to change flights as well.

The normal fare for the Imphal-Delhi flight, if one buys the ticket before 20 days, is Rs 5,900 on an average. The Imphal-Calcutta and Imphal-Guwahati flight fares range between Rs 2,600 and Rs 2,900. The Imphal-Guwahati air ticket, if bought a week ahead, costs Rs 4,500 to Rs 5,000, K. Gunadhor, a travel agent, said.

The rush for tickets has pushed up the fares. Till date, all the flights were full up to August 7. “I paid Rs 9,000 today for two Imphal-Guwahati tickets for August 10. The domestic air travel is costliest in Manipur today. It is because of the economic blockade,” a doctor working in a prestigious institute here said.

Gunadhor said he knows a patient who wanted to go to a Guwahati hospital after suffering a stroke but had to be admitted to Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital as he could not buy the ticket.

Rajesh said chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh and his MLA wife, Landhoni Devi, were on the same Imphal-Calcutta flight that he and his friend Priyohini took. “We wanted to inform the chief minister about our difficulties but did not approach him as we did not know what his reaction would be,” he added.

Ibobi Singh is aware of the problem. In a memorandum submitted to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on July 23, the chief minister urged Singh to increase the number of flights in Imphal from 25 a week to 40 a week. He apprised the Prime Minister of the problem of surface transport and the high airfare.

“The price of the Imphal-Guwahati flight ticket has shot up to about Rs 10,000 to 12,000,” Ibobi Singh told the Prime Minister, adding that as people were left with no alternative there was a rush for air tickets. The chief minister also demanded that airlines should operate at least 10 per cent of their commercial flights in the Northeast.