Mansarovar Yatra put off during Olympics

Besides this, India has also agreed to cut short the number of pilgrims' batches from 16 to 10 though official sources here maintained that the total number of pilgrims will not be reduced.

These developments are in addition to the postponement of the Yatra, a tourism attraction in the hill state, for 13 days. Originally, the Yatra was scheduled to begin on June 1.

When contacted, State Tourism Minister Prakash Pant confirmed that the Yatra would remain suspended for nearly 15 days during Olympics in Beijing but remain non-committal over further changes.

The sources said China is not ready to take any chance during the Olympics especially in the face of mounting international pressure on the issue of Tibet.

The new developments have put extra burden on the Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam (KMVN), the government nodal agency conducting the pilgrimage, with the sources here expressing concern that it would become an uphill task for the smooth conduct of Yatra.

Apart from the Mansarovar Yatra, the clouds of uncertainty are also hovering over the annual India-China barter trade at Taklakot mart at Tibet, which begins on June 15.

The Chinese government is treading a cautious path in the wake of a "march to Tibet" being undertaken by Tibetans and Buddhist monks from Himachal Pradesh. The protesting Tibetans have been camping in Bajpathan area in Pithoragarh district bordering Tibet during the past two weeks.

For the time being, the district administration has not given any permission to the monks to proceed further, the sources said.

A worried Chief Minister B C Khanduri also met External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee in New Delhi yesterday and discussed the latest developments over the Mansarovar Yatra with a request that there should be no further change in the programme.

Mukherjee told Khanduri that the Indian government would do its best so that there should be no further impediments in the pilgrimage.