Expansion
Crumbling mountains, sinking cities, creaking roads and drying up rivers in Uttarakhand indicate that the Himalayas are being abused. Experts claim that the unabated construction going on in Uttarakhand and increasing tourist pressure day by day is ruining the delicate ecosystem of the Himalayas.
According to experts, the coming disasters are the result of this pressure and arbitrariness. The people whose homes were hit by landslides at Joshimath, the gateway to Badrinath, one of the Char Dham destinations, are still in awe and are unable to muster up the courage to return to those homes.
Environmental experts say that road expansion projects have emerged as the biggest threat to the stability of the Himalayas, which are already unstable due to climatic and natural reasons in Uttarakhand. The road project connecting Char Dham-Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri has been termed as a plan to attack the Himalayas in a 2019 report by a committee headed by veteran environmentalist Ravi Chopra.
Road width increased against recommendation
The committee had recommended keeping the width of the road at 5.5 meters on the Char Dham project, but in December 2021, on the order of the Supreme Court, the width of the road was allowed to be 10 meters. Anjal Prakash, research director and associate professor at Bharti Institute of Public Policy, Indian School of Business, said that along the 247-km road between Rishikesh and Joshimath, the road was closed due to landslides 309 times.
Dividing this by the number of kilometers per kilometer, an average of 1.25 landslides have occurred per kilometer. We have to keep in mind that mountains have their own carrying capacity, they can only accept limited number of people at a time. More people over the border increase the pressure on the mountains more than tourism.
It is necessary to control the arrival of tourists
Environment activist Atul Sati says, Uttarakhand government’s decision on the number of pilgrims coming to the state for Char Dham Yatra is a matter of serious concern. Earlier the daily quota of pilgrims visiting Char Dham was fixed. Yamunotri used to get 5,500 pilgrims daily, Gangotri 9,000, Badrinath 15,000 and Kedarnath 18,000 but now this daily limit has been abolished.