We Kashmiris always feel good when our friends from outside Kashmir sing paeans about Kashmir’s natural beauty and talk about their enthralling experiences in Gulmarg, Pahalgam, Sonamarg, Dal Lake and what have you. In my childhood in the mid sixties, our geography books in school would list even Anantnag town among ‘Kashmir kay sehat afza muqam’.
The present generation would hardly believe this. But Anantnag with its springs and temple complex at Nagbal and Mughal style garden Sherbagh, was once a tourist attraction and tourist buses bound for Pahalgam, Verinag, Kokernag and Achabal would invariably stop over at Anantnag ( perhaps they still do ) to enable the tourists to visit the springs, the temple complex and the garden.
Unplanned constructions, encroachments and population growth coupled with poor municipal management and infrastructure has turned this once pretty and clean town into a veritable slum.
The deterioration of Kashmir’s natural beauty, as observed over the years, has happened due to population growth, unplanned and environment unfriendly development, construction boom, encroachments, deforestation, soil erosion and climate change.
Environmental degradation has resulted in drying up or disappearance of streams, reduced water discharge in perennial nallahs and rivers, siltation and drying up of hundreds of springs all over the valley, shrinking of lakes, disappearance of many nambals (water bodies), near disappearance of open areas and fields due to construction and encroachments, conversion of agriculture land for construction of residential houses, shops and commercial establishments etc.
To this we may add wanton digging up of karewas for clay, widespread quarrying of hills and minor mountains for stones and river bed mining for sand. Unfortunately, all this is continuing mindlessly without the forethought where we are heading to.
It will serve no purpose to engage in any kind of blame game at this stage. Doubtless, the people themselves and administrations, past and present, cannot escape their share of responsibility.
Protection of environment and natural resources does not seem to be high on priority even now. The procedure for conversion of agriculture land for non-agriculture purposes has surprisingly been simplified.
Instead of pursuing sustainable tourism policies, unbounded tourism in terms of footfall seems to be getting preference to promote employment, income and economic growth. But this may not be a sound policy from a long term perspective.
Only sustainable tourism policies will be able to promote and protect the long term economic interests and well being of the local people while simultaneously taking due care of environment and natural resources. Kashmir, being environmentally and ecologically a fragile zone, cannot carry a huge population in a sustainable way.
Therefore, opening up Kashmir and for that matter Jammu and Kashmir to new settlers needs to be thought through carefully from the point of view of feasibility and sustainability. It is common knowledge that Kashmir is a small sized valley, barely 200 miles length by 50 miles breadth with limited carrying capacity for sustainability.
The carrying capacity needs to be factored in seriously as Kashmir valley and the hills skirting it, excluding the forests, have not only to accommodate its own growing population but also lakhs of security personnel and the floating population of tourists and pilgrims.
More population brings with it many challenges, like land holding, housing, food self sufficiency, employment, urban infrastructure, health and education, traffic on roads etc and above all burden on natural resources including land, water and forests.
Technologically advanced societies are able to deal with these problems more adroitly but our record, in this regard, has not been very good. We have made slums even out of our once beautiful villages, not to talk of towns and cities.
We have not succeeded fully in protecting our environment and natural resources from the impact of a growing population. Air and water pollution and our struggle with solid waste management are all directly and indirectly linked to population.
The law and the rules pertaining to grant of domicile status to recent settlers or allotment of land have to be made stringent and stricter for the same reasons that population carrying capacity of Jammu and Kashmir is very limited and that environmental and sustainability considerations do not allow any accretion to the population or allotment of land apart from what the law and the rules may prescribe.
A major source of worry is the unplanned use of agriculture land for construction of residential houses. Shops and other commercial type structures are raised on agriculture land alongside the roads, sometimes in violation of the Ribbon Development Act which stipulates a minimum distance from the centre of the road after which construction is allowed subject to other clearances.
The obsession to construct houses and shops alongside roads has not only spoilt the beauty of valley’s famed landscape but has also gobbled up valuable agriculture land. To protect the remaining agriculture land, the government would be well advised to come out with a housing policy that facilitates local private builders to construct housing colonies and apartments on the hard crust karewas skirting the valley.
We already have successful examples of construction on hard crust karewas like IUST, police and CRPF housing, Victor Force RR constructions and AIIMS raised on Awantipore’s hard crust karewa, housing colonies on Zewan karewa near Srinagar and at many other places all over Kashmir.
Shifting residential house construction from the valley’s agriculture land to the hard crust karewas will be a good idea and seems to be the only feasible way to protect the rapidly depleting agriculture land.
In fact the government must impose stricter restrictions on conversion of agriculture land for non-agriculture purposes. Not sure whether the government is fully seized of the matter.
According to one recent newspaper article, we may not be left with any paddy land in the valley in the next few decades if the conversion is not substantially reduced or halted. A sound policy needs to be formulated and implemented to avoid an impending disaster and embarrassment.
Unplanned construction of residential houses and mushroom growth of unplanned residential colonies in Srinagar city has made municipal management a herculean task.
Same thing has happened in other towns, most of whom now resemble rag tag habitations or more like slums with below par municipal infrastructure and services but abounding in big beautiful residential houses.
There is much to be said against the culture of constructing large sized residential houses of brick, cement, steel and timber in Kashmir but suffice it to say here, this is another reason for environmental degradation and pollution apart from being the major cause for conversion of agriculture land.
Unfortunately, the Kashmir engineers have not been able to buck the trend by giving acceptable alternative designs and materials for house construction.
The intention behind writing this piece is to invite attention to a problem that is starkly visible but largely ignored. Kashmir is not only a jewel in the crown of India, it is also part of the world’s heritage endowed by God with uncommon natural beauty. It is the responsibility of us all, the people of this country and the government, to help protect and preserve Kashmir’s natural beauty for future generations.
Khurshid Ahmad Ganie, Rtd. IAS Officer.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author.
The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.