Major tourist spots in Murshidabad have taken a hit to their winter footfall in the aftermath of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act-related unrest since December 13.
Tour operators and restaurant owners in the district said this weekend that they had seen their average footfall in the period before Christmas drop to less than 10 per cent of the usual.
“Normally, we receive an average of 8,000 tourists daily at Hazarduari Palace in the week before Christmas,” said Idul Sheikh, a tanga (traditional horse-drawn carriage) operator, in front of the famed 19th century edifice on Saturday morning.
“Today (Saturday), we have barely seen 200 people come by to see the palace,” he added.
Sources at Hazarduari Palace said that this weekend last year, they had sold 5,000 tickets daily, shooting up to 8,000 in the Christmas-New Year week. On Saturday, the counter sold less than 200, mostly to local residents.
The Hazarduari Palace on the Kila Nizamat campus is the main tourist draw in the district, with the highest footfall among other 18th and 19th century Nawab-era wonders such as the Katra Masjid, Motijhil and Nizamat Imambara.
Sources at the Archaeological Survey of India, which manages Hazarduari, said similarly low footfalls were recorded at all other monuments in the district this week.
Sheikh and others involved in the tourism trade said the unrest on highways and at railway stations had taken a toll on their seasonal wages as tourists from outside Murshidabad are not coming.
“We tanga operators barely make ends meet. During winter, the large volume of outstation visitors allows us the only substantial income the year round,” another tanga driver said. “But now, only people from within the town are going sight-seeing. So people like us are not earning anything.”
Sheikh said that in comparison to a daily winter income of Rs 2,000, he had barely earned Rs 10 over the past few days.
Restaurant and hotel-owners in the town echoed the same predicament, saying their establishments had remained empty this week.
“I have 10 employees to feed, so I don’t have the luxury of closing shop like other restaurants. We are hoping against hope,” said Goutam Bala, the owner of a riverfront restaurant outside Hazarduari, adding that he was not used to seeing empty tables at this time of year.
Sources said the roughly hundred hotels in Murshidabad town had barely received any bookings over the past week. “There are no current or pre-existing reservations in most of them,” said a source.
CAA-related violence has crippled the Sealdah-Lalgola railway route. As of Saturday, most services are still suspended. Residents of Murshidabad said this week that highway travel had reduced owing to fears of a repeat of violence.
