Wangnoo brothers replace gutted houseboats in record 16 hours
Wangnoo brothers, proprietors of Gurkha Houseboats, franchisees of ITC’s Welcome Heritage, yesterday evening sprang a surprise by arranging replacements of two of their three gutted houseboats within a record period of 16 hours and third one they replaced this morning.
Their three houseboats had gutted in a fire incident Tuesday night.
The management of the Gurkha Houseboats proudly informed all the members of IATA and other travel and tourism players about the replacements of the gutted boats in a record period.
The move has been widely hailed across the tourism fraternity. Almost all the travel, tourism and hospitality bodies while extending their sympathies to Wangnoos, hailed their efforts in fully restoring their services within 24 hours time.
They also urged the state government to not only allow reconstruction of the three houseboats but also facilitate it by providing special timber quota at subsidised rates to the group for the purpose so that its losses are minimised.
The tourism trade and hospitality industry heaved a sigh of relief on seeing the group with decades of reputation and a name in hospitality industry arranging the replacements so fast and that too of high class.
To mention, Kashmir’s famed Welcom Heritage Group Gurkha Houseboats Group had lost three precious heritage houseboats in an inferno in Nigeen lake during the night intervening Monday/Tuesday. The fire had started around 1 AM from one houseboat and engulfed two adjoining houseboats.
Pertinently, it is second fire incident in last two months in the famed Nigeen lake where the blaze turned houseboats into ashes.
Prior to this fire incident, houseboat namely Khilona was burnt in the fire incident.
The houseboats owners have been demanding fire fighting facilities at Nigeen and Dal lake to thwart any untoward incidents.
Meanwhile, the tourism fraternity hailed the Wangnoo Bros for showing resilience and arranging immediate replacements to the gutted houseboats.
Chairman, TAAI- JK Chapter Shamim Ahmad Shah said the courage shown by Wangnoo Bros is exemplary. “Despite facing such loss, they have shown that they care for the tourism and for the tourists coming to Kashmir.”
Meanwhile, Sunil Sikka, Head Marketing Welcom Heritage group of Palaces, Forts, Havelis and Resorts has in a circular circulated among its clientele informed them that ‘the gutted boats were not occupied and were lying vacant. No casualties has been reported. Three damaged boats have been replaced and the operation is smooth as usual’.
Demand for fire fighting:
The houseboat owners have since long been demanding dedicated fire-fighting facility at Nigeen and Dal lakes to prevent such fire incidents.
The stakeholders said that there was an immediate need to set up a dedicated fire-fighting facility for Nigeen and Dal lakes to prevent fire incidents. “We have time and again raised this demand with the authorities, but unfortunately our pleas have fallen on deaf ears,” Shamim said.
He said, in the past several fire incidents property worth crores of rupees in the shape of houseboats in these two lakes was lost. “Had there been a fire-fighting facility available round the clock dedicated to these lakes, the damage could have been minimized considerably.”
Shah said they have already apprised the VC LAWDA about their demands. “The VC was kind enough to write to Director Fire & Emergency services requesting them to dedicate fire tender motor boats (High speed boats) to Nigeen Lake, but following this nothing was done.”
Meanwhile, Wangnoo Bros have expressed gratitude to all tourism fraternity and others who they have “showed solidarity in this hour of grief with us.”
“We are thankful to all those who visited us and expressed solidarity with us,” they said.
They said the Gurkha Houseboats are going to add three more rooms to the accommodation in their fleet of houseboats shortly.
