Unregulated tourist influx: Kashmir dreads the final straw that will break the Himalayas’ back

Tourism is a small but important part of Kashmir's economy. However, in the name of tourism, the government should not put the fragile and already-strained natural resources and public infrastructure in the region under even more pressure, lest it lead to a complete destruction of the beautiful valley, which is home to 7 million people.

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Four years after India made Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) its youngest Union territory, the region is expected to receive around 2 crore (20 million) tourists this year. This was revealed by the lieutenant governor of the Union territory Manoj Sinha in April while laying the foundation stone of a medical college in the outskirts of Srinagar.

Sinha said that the number of tourists J&K is set to receive during this year would break all previous records of tourist influx into Kashmir. 

Will the Union territory, especially the ecologically fragile Kashmir valley, be able to accommodate such a huge number of tourists?

What about the amount of waste 2 crore tourists will generate? Does the Union territory have the infrastructure to treat this waste scientifically, considering that the number of tourists visiting is more than twice the population of the region? 

Do we have scientific waste management systems in place in Srinagar and other tourist places of J&K? 

In this article I will be explaining all this with facts and figures. 

Shrinking farmlands and tourism 

Tourists who visit Kashmir are fascinated by the natural beauty while they move around on the Jammu–Srinagar highway (National Highway 44). They are often seen taking pictures in the saffron fields of Pampore or with the mustard flowers elsewhere in the valley (which bloom in abundance around the spring season— March to April).

When tourists visit Pahalgam, they take selfies near the apple trees that dot the landscape on the way to this beautiful tourist resort. 

Imagine what will happen if the beauty of this landscape is allowed to perish? There will be no reason for tourists to visit Kashmir. More importantly, it will become well-nigh impossible for Kashmiris to live in Kashmir.

The government's own data reveals that agriculture landholding in J&K has come down drastically. As per a report published on 10th agriculture census (2015–16) by the financial commissioner of revenue for the erstwhile state of J&K, the total number of operational holdings in the state was 14.16 lakh, operating on 8.42 lakh hectare of land.

This was 14.49 lakh holdings operating on 8.95 lakh hectare of land in the 9th agriculture census ( 2010–11). 

This means that in a mere five-year period, J&K had witnessed a decrease of 2.27 percent in the number of holdings and a decrease of 5.92 percent in the operating area under agriculture. 

The average holding size in J&K during the 10th agriculture census (2015–16) stood at 0.59 hectare. This has come down further in the 2021–22 agriculture census whose final report is yet to be made public. 

As per the 2015–16 agriculture census, around 84 percent of farmers in J&K were marginal farmers and 11.29 percent, 4.10 percent, 0.78 percent and 0.04 percent farmers had small, semi-medium, medium and large land holdings respectively.

Marginal farmers are those who have less than 1 hectare of land holdings, small farmers have 1–2 hectare of land holdings, semi-medium farmers have 2–4 hectare of land holdings, medium farmers have 4–10 hectare of land holdings, and large farmers have more than 10 hectare of land holdings.

In the 9th agriculture census, the average land holding in J&K was 0.62 hectare and between 2010–11 and 2015–16 agriculture censuses, there has been a decrease of 0.03 hectare of agriculture land holding. 

The unofficial figures say that the agricultural land has shrunk further in the last five–six years and is now only around 0.5 hectare. If this downward spiral continues, I believe that in the next 25 to 30 years, 90 percent of the rural population in J&K, especially in the Kashmir valley, will become landless.

We will see only concrete structures on our agricultural land. It will have serious consequences for our agriculture economy and tourism will be severely impacted as well. There will be more floods as our wetlands and lakes are choked and the built up concrete area doesn't allow water to seep into the ground. 

Unscientific waste disposal and illegal mining  

In future, shrinking farmlands will not only impact our agriculture and tourism but will also have a direct impact on management of our municipal solid waste. 

In J&K, 90 percent of the urban local bodies, including the Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC), Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) and smaller councils and committees have no official landfill sites. Waste is not treated as per the Municipal Solid Waste Rules, 2016. Even in Srinagar city, the only garbage dump site located at Achan Saidpora is choked and emits an obnoxious smell, especially during summer months.  

Enough land isn't available in our towns and cities to set up scientific landfill sites. In hilly towns, this is even more of a challenge, especially in Ramban, Doda and Udhampur, where municipal solid waste is dumped unscientifically in forests or waterbodies. 

During the last decade, the SMC has not been able to acquire even 50–60 acre of land for creating a landfill as an alternative to the overburdened Achan Saidpora site. 

In 2017, the then deputy chief minister Nirmal Singh, who was also the Minister for Housing & Urban Development Department (HUDD), while responding to a question from a legislator of Srinagar, Mubarak Gul, said on the floor of the J&K assembly that a committee had been constituted under the district magistrate of Srinagar to look for land to create a new landfill site in Srinagar but the committee could not find even 10 acre of land to set up the new landfill site.

It is a well-known fact that Srinagar and a majority of the districts in J&K have small landholdings and most of the land is already occupied by shopping complexes or housing colonies and finding large patches of land to set up landfill sites or garbage dump sites is a herculean task.

This is the reason that a majority of our water bodies, such as lakes, wetlands, rivers and streams, have become waste dump sites and this author had to move a formal application before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to ensure a clean-up of the Doodh Ganga river in the Srinagar–Budgam area.

This waterbody is being used to dump solid waste at multiple locations by local residents. The Geology and Mining Department has auctioned this stream for riverbed mining with effect from September 2021 to 2026. The project proponent is mining as deep as 10 metre while only mining till 1 metre depth is allowed. 

Huge cranes and JCB are also used for extracting sand, boulders and gravel, which is in violation of the J&K Minor Mineral Concession Rules 2016 and the guidelines of J&K State Environmental Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA). 

In addition, the SMC and a few other government bodies have set up around 13 wastewater pump stations on the banks of Doodh Ganga, which flush out untreated water and sewage into the stream in violation of Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974. Keeping these violations under consideration and after providing the material facts, the NGT imposed a penalty of ₹35 crore on the government of J&K in October this year 

In March this year, a ₹3 crore penalty had already been imposed. The money was released from the coffers of SMC, the Department of Geology and Mining and the municipal committees of Chadoora and Budgam.

In the Poonch district of Jammu, the local municipality is using the Poonch river as a garbage dump site. In this case, too, a few months back this author had to move an application before the NGT. Notice was issued to the district magistrate, Poonch and the pollution control committee, asking for a detailed report from them. The case is listed for hearing in July.

Conclusion  

Heaps of plastic waste can be seen in the tourist places of Kashmir, such as Gulmarg, Pahalgam, Sonamarg, Yusmarg and Doodhpathri. The government should seriously think about banning plastic in these tourist spots. 

The pilgrims visiting the Amarnath cave are littering in the high altitude mountains, which is even more dangerous because the waste does not decompose easily in the freezing weather at such high altitudes. The cave is also adjacent to the magnificent Kolahoi glacier and the waste acts like a hot knife through butter, trapping sunlight and cutting through the white snow and ice.

People visit the cave for spiritual reasons, but when they engage in anti-nature activities by throwing plastic, food and other wastes in the pristine glaciers and mountains, it leads to environmental destruction.

In Srinagar city alone, around 500 metric tonne of waste is generated daily and this quantity goes up during the tourist rush in summers. Unfortunately not even 10 percent of this waste is treated.

Same is the case with other tourist places of J&K such as Gulmarg, Sonamarg and Pahalgam. When 2 crore tourists visit J&K in a year, how will authorities manage them? Do we have scientific landfill sites? What about the carbon footprints these tourists will leave? 

So it is advisable that the government must first concentrate on ensuring that all tourist places have a scientific waste management system in place. Plastic must be completely banned. No food items packed in plastic wrappers should be sold at tourist resorts.

The pilgrims coming for pilgrimage to the Amarnath cave should not be allowed to carry any plastic packed food materials and the number of pilgrims visiting the shrine should also be reduced, as recommended by Nitesh SenGupta Committee report.

Tourism is a small but vital part of Kashmir's economy. But we must not let unregulated tourism put an unbearable strain on the natural resources and infrastructure of the region. By doing so, we may earn quick bucks for a few years, but it will ultimately result in Kashmir becoming a trashbowl.

Let us not allow Kashmir valley to become a trash valley.