From,
Dr. Anagha Agrawal
Plot no 18, Vasudeonagar,
Dharmadhikari mala,
Savedi, Ahmednagar (M.S.)
Pin-414003
Date:-01/05
Respected Sir /Madam
This is Dr. Anagha Agrawal. I stay at Ahmednagar and I am sending this letter to you to tell you about my hilarious experience I had during my trip (educational) to Manali (H.P. ) ;booked through a government agency (bharatbooking.com) of Himachal Pradesh government.
I and my husband Dr. Shobhit had planned a tour to Himachal Pradesh some 8 months back when we got to know that 15th Indian Orthodontic Society’s Post Graduate Students Convention will be held in Manali on 25-27 mar.
My husband was booking our tour by make my trip (a Private Agency) but suddenly we came to know about this government agency called bharatbooking.com of Himachal Pradesh tourism. I only suggested him to book it by government agency instead of a private (for which I’m cursing myself till date)
According to reservations we reached on Pune airport on 23 March. From there we called our agent to inform him that we have already started the journey and please make the further arrangements. But to our surprise he was absolutely unaware of it.
Finally we reached Delhi at 9.15pm the same day with the delay of nearly 45 min because of bad weather.
Our further journey was upto Manali by a sleeper bus which the agent was supposed to arrange for us. As we enquired he said that he was unaware of the bus schedule and the last bus has already left at 8 o’clock itself. After immense argument he didn’t accepted his mistake but blamed us for booking the tour that early. Finally he arranged a cab (Indica DL 1 Y B 8896) with a driver named Aashish. Now that long journey of 585 km approximately we have to be in that small car. We finally reached after 16 hours of painful journey to Manali at about 2.00 o’clock in the noon the next day.
The suffering didn’t end here; we reached in the hotel (Beas view) and came to know that the manager was not been informed about our visit. Half an hour later our agent Mr. Aman called us up saying that he has arranged a room in hotel Comfort Inn (which was the most uncomfortable one). The booking and payment we had made was for a Super Deluxe Room; but the one we had got was a local room (in which I couldn’t think of keeping my servant also) The room was absolutely dirty. Finally we called the manager got our room changed to a bit better one. The manager couldn’t even provide us with clean drinking water and on asking about it he used to say that this is what you get here. Whenever we used to ask for our complimentary food it used to take two and a half hour for preparation and on ordering something payable they used to provide in 15 min. We finally called our Tour agent to inform about it but he was unavailable all the time. On top of it one fine day when we were out for banquet in the conference and we came late at about 11.30 pm and found that the door of the hotel was closed. We rang bell, called the manager and waited there for more than half an hour in the immense cold of Manali (around 10 degrees) waiting for the hotel person. He came outside yawning and argued to us about coming late instead of being sorry. At this time also we tried call our agent but he wasn’t available.
On top of it the driver provided to us was from Delhi and wasn’t aware of tourist places in and near Manali. He was extremely arrogant and never used to take us to the places where we wanted to go but to the places where he wanted to visit. Half of our time went in availing services from people which they don’t wanted to provide and our agent was never available to us to take responsibility and to take care of the matter.
Finally on 27thof mar (our last day of journey) the agent (Mr. Aman) and his boss (Mr. Jitendra, Head of Manali branch of bharat booking) called us for telling that we are supposed to vacate the room before 10 o’clock. Now our booking was upto evening according to the invoice provided to us. My husband finally became angry and went to meet them in their office. After a huge argument finally he agreed to give us one hour to pack our luggage. He also argued about the payment. Actually we were supposed to pay only 9, 000 rupees as per the package, but he made us pay 14, 000 for services that he failed to provide us. We paid for super deluxe room (which was a local room), then the Volvo rates (which he couldn’t arrange for us) and to the driver 5, 000 to the driver because he left us from Delhi to Manali and will again leave us to Delhi. Being a student we were not having enough cash and so we need to cancel purchase of instruments and deposit that money to Mr.jitendra.
While leaving his office he promised us a hotel in Delhi to freshen up and on asking details he said he’ll tell that to the driver.
Finally we left for Delhi. We reached Karnal (a place in Haryana) at 6.30 was around 120 km away from Delhi which our driver could cover in merely 2 hours but as soon as he realized this he started driving slowly so that we couldn’t reach in Delhi in time and the agent wouldn’t have to arrange a hotel for us. He was driving at 20 km per hour speed on a national highway which was literally empty and used to take frequent pauses for no known reasons.
Finally after a long journey of around 20 hours (in that tiny car) we reached Delhi airport at about 11 am.
Being a doctor I get only few days to enjoy and I made it a sulking pain by booking it by Bharat booking.
There only I have decided that being an aware resident of India I should write this story and inform you about the quality of services we are getting. I have lost all my confidence in government system as well as my husband. Hence forward we have decided to book all our tour through make my trip (even if it is a bit expensive) as our previous experiences were far more better than this. Never will I suggest any of my relatives, friends or colleagues to book a tour by government agencies. Like this only youth is losing interest in our country and settling in other countries. I found my duty to inform you about it and request you to look into the matter.
Thanking you for your patient listening.
Yours’ sincerely
Dr. Anagha
Copy to-
President of India
Tourism Minister
Head of Himachal Pradesh Tourism
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