China drops plan to hike fee for Kailash Mansarovar yatris

China today dropped its plan to hike the fees of Kailash Mansarovar yatra for Indian pilgrims by USD 100, but the two sides remained silent about India's plans to a consulate in Tibet.
The decision was taken on India's request as Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh held the sixth annual Strategic Dialogue with her Chinese counterpart Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin.
She said Liu immediately agreed to India's request to waive its plan to increase the Mansarovar Yatra fees from USD 800 to USD 900.
"He has given immediate answer to India's request demonstrating the goodwill between the two countries," Singh told reporters after the day-long meeting.

India and China have signed an MOU under which Beijing has agreed to increase the facilities for Yatris.
Singh said due to floods last year in Uttaranchal, only one batch of Yatris visited the place.

But at the same time, she did not indicate whether India's earlier request to open consulate in Tibet figured in the talks today.
The expansion of Consulates figured.
"We have certain places in mind but certainly we are not going to talk about it before it is finalised," she said.
Pressed further, she said, "It is under discussion we can not go into specifics until we finalise it."

Earlier reports said China has rejected India's request to re-open its diplomatic mission in Lhasa and asked New Delhi to choose Chengdu in Sichuan province, which is closest to Tibet, besides Kunming.
Similarly, China has reportedly shown interest in opening a Consulate in Chennai.
Singh, however, declined to reveal details of discussions on this issue.