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No joy rides for 500 pony owners as lockdown ceases tourist activity in Kufri
Currently, there are 1,029 horses registered at Kufri.
The Covid-driven lockdown has snatched the livelihood of around 500 pony/horse owners who used to earn from offering joy rides to tourists at Shimla’s famous attraction Kufri.
Currently, there are 1,029 horses registered at Kufri.
President of Kufri Ashva Palak Kalyan Samiti, Shekhar Sharma told Ht, “The business is completely dependent on tourists, so there is no income right now. Around 70% of these pony owners have no land or are migrants with no other source of income.”
He said the rising cost of feed and maintenance of the animals was an additional financial burden on them. “The cost of whole gram (chana) on which these ponies and horses survive is over ₹150/kg and the average cost to maintain a horse was no less than ₹600-700 a day. Also, we have to pay ₹100 every month for the sanitation and maintenance of the tourist spot,” he said.
A horse owner, who didn’t wish to be named, said, “All my savings have been exhausted, and I am unable to take care of the two horses I own. So I am going to sell one of them, but due to the pandemic, no one is ready to buy it either.”
Geeta Ram, who has been in the profession for 15 years now, said, “This is the peak season for us. For the past many years, I have been taking online booking as well. But this year, all the bookings got cancelled due to the lockdown. Small businesses like ours go unnoticed by the government.”
