“Wisdom demands that both the tourists and as well as the local residents carry trash bags with them to tourist places and on their return dump the very trash bags anywhere nearer the waste dumping sites or some other suitable places away from the populated areas.”
With the continuing rise in tourist footfall in Kashmir Valley the development of offbeat tourist destinations in Kashmir is getting the attention from the country’s top dignitaries which it never got during the decades of popular rule in Jammu & Kashmir. Unfortunately the rise in tourist footfall is deepening the crisis of waste collection and disposal at world class conventional tourist destinations like Gulmarg, Pahalgam, Sonmarg and few other such tourist places so hugely that just a day ago even the Union Tourism Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat during his recent visit to Srinagar called for shift from conventional to offbeat tourist destinations. Surprisingly neither the tourists nor the residents show the civic sense which they are supposed to show for reducing the deepening crisis of waste disposal at key tourist places in Kashmir. Wisdom demands that both the tourists and as well as the local residents carry trash bags with them to tourist places and on their return dump the very trash bags anywhere nearer the waste dumping sites or some other suitable places away from the populated areas. When the tourist and local residents are callous enough to allow the waste to accumulate in parks, gardens and peripheries of the roads at tourist places the onus of clearing the waste lies on Tourism Development Authorities (TDAs). Had the Tourism Development Authorities (TDAs) taken care of waste collection and disposal besides building the necessary tourist infrastructure, the crisis of waste disposal won’t have deepened so hugely that visiting Union Tourism Minister would call for shift of tourist arrivals from conventional to offbeat tourism destinations in Kashmir Valley?
“Unfortunately even offbeat destinations like Gurez, Bangus, Karnah, Daksum, Watlab, Lolab, Sinthan top, Doodhpathri, Kangan despite being ideal places eco-tourism are littered with polythenes and plastic bottles. For changing Kashmir into an eco-tourism destination the development and maintenance of civic facilities particularly the collection and disposal of the waste demands and deserves immediate attention of the Tourism Development Authorities (TDAs) at both the conventional and as well as offbeat tourist destinations in Kashmir Valley.”
Though shift of tourist arrivals from conventional to offbeat tourist destinations is good for exploration of more and more new tourist destinations in furtherance of the causes of bringing more and more tourist places on the map of tourist activities in Kashmir Valley but the waste disposal becoming the cause of shift of tourist arrivals from conventional to offbeat tourist destinations is not at all a good omen for the future of tourist activities in Jammu & Kashmir. Unfortunately even offbeat destinations like Gurez, Bangus, Karnah, Daksum, Watlab, Lolab, Sinthan top, Doodhpathri, Kangan despite being ideal places eco-tourism are littered with polythenes and plastic bottles. For changing Kashmir into an eco-tourism destination the development and maintenance of civic facilities particularly the collection and disposal of the waste demands and deserves immediate attention of the Tourism Development Authorities (TDAs) at both the conventional and as well as offbeat tourist destinations in Kashmir Valley.
