Good news for Kailash Mansarovar pilgrims! Yatra, direct India-China flights to be resumed soon

India and China, in yet another attempt to mend the ties since the Doklam standoff, have decided to resume the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra and restore direct flights. The decision to resume Kailash Mansarovar Yatra and direct flights came during a meeting between Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong on Monday, January 27.

During the meeting, India and China reviewed the “state of India-China bilateral relations comprehensively and agreed to take certain people-centric steps to stabilize and rebuild ties.”

The two sides decided to resume Kailash Mansarovar Yatra from the summer of 2025. India and China have also decided to resume direct flights between the two countries, New Delhi said in a statement on Monday after Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri visited Beijing.

The Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, which includes a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash and Mansarovar Lake in Tibet, was suspended in 2020 due to the outbreak of Covid-19. Since then, relations between India and China have shown no significant improvement.

“In this context, the two sides decided to resume the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra in the summer of 2025; the relevant mechanism will discuss the modalities for doing so as per existing agreements,” a statement from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said. 

It was also decided that an early meeting of the India-China Expert Level Mechanism will be held to discuss “resumption of provision of hydrological data and other cooperation pertaining to trans-border rivers.”

“They agreed in principle to resume direct air services between the two countries; the relevant technical authorities on the two sides will meet and negotiate an updated framework for this purpose at an early date,” the statement read.

As India and China celebrate 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, the two sides have also “agreed to take appropriate measures to further promote and facilitate people-to-people exchanges, including media and think-tank interactions.”

Vikram Misri is in Beijing on a two-day visit for talks with Chinese officials to improve India-China relations, in the second such high-profile visit from India to China in less than one-and-a-half months.