Uncontrolled tourism, growth threaten Himalayas

An alternative model of development is essential in the Himalayan states, to ensure the carrying capacity of the region is not breached.

What happened in Himachal Pradesh (HP), particularly Shimla, during this monsoon season is a harbinger of things to come — weeks of heavy rainfall brought the state to its knees, causing widespread destruction of life and property. Close to 400 people have died from rain-related incidents such as landslides and flash floods since June, with at least 80 deaths in Shimla, the “queen of the hills”. More than 2,220 homes have been destroyed, while another 10,000 houses lie damaged. The state has witnessed over 100 landslides since the beginning of the monsoon this year, which is around six-fold more than last year. Chief Minister Sukhwinder Sukhu has pegged the losses at Rs 12,000 crore, emphasising the magnitude of the destruction.

But this tragedy is not only due to climate change. While climate change-linked extreme rainfall has exacerbated the situation, the destruction is our doing. Whatever happened in HP, particularly in Shimla, is not sudden or unanticipated. The city has grown exponentially and haphazardly since independence. The city was established during the British era to sustain 16,000 people. However today, the numbers have exploded and are estimated to be around 3,25,069. 

For the past 44 years, since the Interim Shimla Development Plan (ISDP) was introduced in 1979, construction in Shimla went almost unchecked, compromising all safety parameters. Until 2022, successive governments could not finalise the Shimla Development Plan (SDP) to address the town's specific development needs and balance ecology and population growth. However, when the draft SDP was finally released in 2022, it allowed construction in the notified forest zones. 

Since 2010, there has been a complete ban on construction in these forest patches. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) in 2016 reaffirmed the prohibition based on an Environment Impact Study and also on the basis of a report of the committee set up by the NGT to study the carrying capacity of Shimla. And yet, the state government went ahead brazenly and opened the forest patches for construction. Fortunately, the SDP is now pending approval before the Supreme Court after grave environmental concerns were raised. 

The fact is, the Town and Country Planning (TCP) Act, 1977, and the Municipal Corporation Act have laid down norms to regulate construction activity in Shimla, but a near-absence of monitoring and enforcement and political necessities to accommodate the violators have left Shimla battered. 

The extent of violation can be gauged by the fact that the state government (from both the BJP and the Congress) has introduced a “retention” policy a record seven times between 1997 and 2014 to regularise illegal constructions. 

This strategy was employed mostly ahead of Shimla Municipal Corporation elections or state assembly polls, to get votes. 

Today, there are an estimated 12,000 illegal constructions in Shimla alone. 

The buildings have been raised either without the approval of maps in highly ecologically fragile areas or go beyond sanctioned plans, adding extra floors. But Shimla is not unique; such violations and unsustainable growth are common across the Himalayas. 

Alternate vision

It is essential to understand that the Himalayan states are suffering from a ‘disease’ — the ‘disease’ to replicate the development model of the plains — big infrastructure projects, wider roads, high-rise buildings and mass tourism. It is this uncontrolled growth model that is seriously compromising their environmental security.

It is well-known that the Himalayas are one of the most unstable mountain ranges and are prone to natural disasters. On top of this, global warming is profoundly impacting the geology and hydrology of the region. Data shows that 90 per cent of earthquakes, most landslides and a large proportion of cloudbursts in India occur there. With massive infrastructure development and more people living in vulnerable areas, the economic and ecological losses are mounting and will continue to grow unless we make fundamental changes in the development paradigm.

The first change is to stop copying the plains. The domain of environmental science tells us that every place has a carrying capacity. Once this capacity is exceeded, ecological destruction ensues. The Himalayas have a much lower carrying capacity than the plains and thus can sustain much lower human pressure. Therefore, better planning and enforcement are essential to ensure the carrying capacity is not breached. 

But unfortunately, the institutions which can ensure this, like the Town and Country Planning Department and the Environment Department, are weak and ineffective in hill states. In Uttarakhand, for instance, the TCP department is operating with minimal staff and resources. The department’s re-organisation has not been executed since its bifurcation from Uttar Pradesh. 

Tourism

The second change is to practice an alternative model of development. This is an immediate requirement in the tourism sector. It is projected that 250 million tourists will visit the hill states by 2025; the number was 100 million before the pandemic. This massive growth will exacerbate water scarcity, worsen air quality and lead to forest and land degradation. 

But there is an alternative to this unsustainable tourism — high-value sustainable tourism. We can follow the example of Bhutan, which has capped the number of travellers by imposing a sustainable development fee of $200 per day. A part of this fee goes toward environmental protection and enhancing livelihood for local residents. A similar sustainable tourism policy is required for our Himalayas too.

Himalayan states are also mindlessly constructing hydroelectric power projects (HEP). The rivers of the Indus basin flowing through HP and Jammu and Kashmir have a total of 115 large HEP (above 25 MW) in different stages of planning, construction and commissioning. Most of these are cascade projects, one after another, aimed to tap maximum hydropower potential, but their ecological impacts are devastating. Many of these projects are also not economically viable, considering the rapidly falling costs of other renewable energy sources like solar and wind power.     

But Himalayan states can prosper without destroying themselves. They have a beautiful environment, clean air and water. They can build on their endowment and create a large number of jobs in the environment sector — biodiversity conservation, high-value organic farming, sustainable forestry and glacier and water body protection, to name a few. 

And they can be incentivised by the rest of the country to do this. These areas hold major water sources that sustain the plains. Their glaciers, forests and biodiversity are essential for the country’s ecological security. While some progress has been made on payments for ecosystem services, a lot more needs to be done so that these states can develop and prosper like the rest of the country.

(Chandra Bhushan is the CEO of the International Forum for Environment, Sustainability and Technology (iFOREST))