Tourist influx with limited space, resources add to woes of Mussoorie
Green experts say forests around town are being eroded due to unscientific construction that should be stopped
MUSSOORIE: The large influx of tourists annually has resulted in increasing pressure on available resources, testing the existing infrastructure to its extreme limits and threatening the ecology of colonial era hill town of Mussoorie that is spread across the 64 sq km on the ridge that was founded by the British rulers in 1820s.
With more hands needed to cater to tourists resulting in more demand for local manpower is adding to the woes of the hill town that has overgrown beyond its carrying capacity and many believe that until the longterm corrective measures such as augmenting the infrastructure and creating a master plan for the town is not done the town is going only one way that is downhill.
Sandeep Sahni, president of Uttarakhand hotel and restaurant association, said, “Tourism is the sole bread and butter for us but the town has overgrown its carrying capacity and due to old age infrastructure, that is unable to take in the large inflow of tourists it results in chaotic condition with frequent traffic jams and water scarcity in Mussoorie.”
The situation aggravates when thousands of tourist vehicles try to enter the hill town that can cater only a few due to parking shortage in Mussoorie.
The administration had to refuse entry to more than 4,000 tourist vehicles lining up for Mussoorie in July last year to escape the heat wave condition in plains of northern India.
A similar situation occurs whenever the town receives snow as the travellers from adjacent districts flock to see and enjoy snow during winter months, especially in January every year, creating traffic congestion and stressing out the available resources said Chandra Singh, an hotelier from Mussoorie.
Mussoorie police station in charge Girish Chandra Sharma said, “This January, we struggled to control traffic during the snowfall and had to deploy additional force to manage the traffic due to high influx of tourists in the town forcing us to opt for one-way traffic rule.”
The bottlenecks at Library, Landour, Mullingar, Company Garden and Kulri Bazaar where the existing colonial-era roads result in traffic congestion and till the time a long-term solution to widen the rods is not taken the problem will persist during peak tourist season, he added.
Dehradun district tourism officer Jaspal Chauhan said, “Around 1963,887 tourists visited Mussoorie in 2019, 5498,819 in 2020 and 465,509 in 2021 which was less compared to previous years due to Covid restrictions.”
The tourism department is working on a ropeway proposal from Purkul in Dehradun to Mussoorie and once completed it will help in mitigating the traffic jam situation as tourists will park the vehicles in Dehradun and avail the ropeway services, he added.
However, the increase in the number of tourists also increases pressure on other resources such as drinking water which creates a water crisis in the peak seasons.
Currently, Mussoorie draws around 7 million litres of water a day from around 20 natural sources while its requirement especially in peak season is at 14 million litres a day, said LC Ramola, executive engineer of Jal Sansthan, Mussoorie.
Some efforts have been made by government in this regard, said BJP leaders.
Mussoorie MLA Ganesh Joshi said, “A drinking water pipeline project to draw water from the Yamuna is being envisaged to augment the water supply for the town and once completed it will be able to cater to the shortfall even in peak season.”
However, with only one storage tank being constructed so far, the residents are demanding an increase in the speed of the work so that other storage tanks are also constructed before the start of the season.
The rampant deforestation due to illegal construction is also defacing the town and environmentalists believe that the new hotels are cropping up in connivance with various development authorities.
Environment expert Vipin Kumar, who was part of the movement to save forests areas around Mussoorie, said, “The forests around the town are being eroded due to rampant and unscientific construction which should be stopped immediately.”
The only way the town can be saved is through a master plan that demarcates the green area and the area depicting habitation. No one should be allowed to cut down the rocks mountains and disturb minor micro-ecosystem that is so important for the fragile ecology of the region and development authorities should have different approaches while creating the housing construction plans with a big now to high rise commercial constructions as the area falls under Seismic Zone.
The ongoing Survey being done by the forest department of more than 200 private forest estates will help in demarcating the area that can be left as green cover and that can be used for construction.
Divisional forest officer of Mussoorie Kahkashan Naseem said, “The ongoing survey of more than 200 private forest estates will complete this year if all goes well and it will help in saving the areas that are notified as forest areas under it.”