July 23, 2013: Jamshedpur appears to have pipped Ranchi in the aerial race to Baidyanath Dham.

Baba Baidyanath Darshanam — a holy package offering flight transfer to Deoghar and a premium darshan of Lord Shiva during Shravan— could not kick off in Ranchi on Monday, the first day of festivities at the temple, due to lack of enough pilgrims. The fresh dates for start of the service have not been announced yet.

In contrast, Jamshedpur, where the same service is to be launched from August 1, looks set to meet its aerial date with Babadham. The flight is full for the first two days with staff at the booking offices in the steel city confirming that queries were pouring in for the remaining days too.

The package, jointly offered by the state tourism and civil aviation departments at a pocket pinch of Rs 14,999 per head, can be availed till August 21 in both the cities.

“We were forced to cancel the flight on the first day as we did not have enough bookings for the nine-seater Cessna Caravan that was to make three trips to Deoghar daily. Till now, we have registered only 35 fliers. We don’t know when the service will start even though bookings are full for July 29 and 30,” said Poonam Anand, Baba Baidyanth Darshanam’s co-ordinator and member of Federation of Jharkhand Chamber of Commerce and Industries that is supporting the initiative in Ranchi.

According to initial plans, 27 pilgrims were to fly every day from Ranchi to Deoghar between July 22 and August 21, which takes the total number of expected passengers to 837.

Later, the number of sorties a day was brought down to just one, that is nine fliers were required daily. But the actual bookings fell far short of the target.

Pandey said the poor response to the special package, which includes the two-way air journey, darshan and jal abhishek (an offering made to the sacred lingam) and refreshments, could be blamed on age-old practice of kanwariyas walking to the Deoghar temple.

In Jamshedpur, where the departments have teamed up with Singhbhum Chamber of Commerce and Industries, 18 tickets have been sold for August 1 and 2. There will be one trip every day.

“We already have 18 pilgrims for the first two days. More will come. We are booking tickets in such a way that the nine-seater plane is full. Several businessmen and their families are going,” said Prakash Kumar, in-charge at a booking counter in Sakchi.

Source: The Telegraph, DT. July 23, 2013.