Waste dumping at Char Dham yatra poses environmental risk: Experts
MUSSOORIE: The higher places of Uttarakhand are littered with garbage and solid waste that lakhs of pilgrims threw around while visiting Char Dham yatra shrines, posing ecological dangers for upper reaches of the Himalayas, said environmental experts and activists.
Twelve days after the opening of the Char Dham yatra in Uttarakhand, over 400,000 pilgrims have visited the Char Dham shrines and over 1 million have registered for the yatra, according to tourism department officials. Pilgrims and tourists leave behind polythene bags, packaging material, plastic bottles and clothes used for religious rituals a large part of which enters rivers, small tributaries and mountain streams.
With the summer break expected in plains after midMay, the rush of tourists and pilgrims is expected to increase.
Green activists are worried that such irresponsible waste disposal and littering will damage the environment and increase pollutants in the higher reaches of the Himalayas, a large quantum of which finally make their entry into the rivers, damaging their ecology.
The generation of solid waste by pilgrims is another concern. Uttarakhand generates around 3,000 metric tonnes of solid waste every day, according to records of the state urban administration department.
Anoop Nautiyal, founder of Dehradun-based Social Development Communities Foundation, said during the Char Dham yatra season on average a person generates a minimum 7-9 kg of waste, given that he/ she takes nine days to complete the yatra of all four shrines.
“Thousands of metric tonnes of waste is generated during the whole Char Dham yatra season by pilgrims in addition to day-to-day waste generated by people living in these areas and other tourists and travellers going for treks. There is no system to properly dispose this waste,” Nautiyal said.
In absence of any mechanism to dispose waste as per Solid Waste Management Rules (SWM) 2016, he said, the waste most ends up in rivers, impacting river ecology. In some places, where the waste is collected, it burnt causing air pollution. “Open waste/littering also encourages monkey menace, which remains a major issue in the state,” he said.
Environmentalists are appalled at seeing pictures and videos on social media of garbage strewn along Yamuna, Ganga and Alaknanda and Mandakini rivers on Char Dham routes. In Yamnotri and Gangotri, the rivers are full of discarded clothes of pilgrims after taking holy bath in these rivers.
At Uttarkashi, the town near Yamnotri, the local municipal body collects waste which is dumped near the tunnel at the main entry point of Uttarkashi and most of it gets washed into a tributary of river Yamuna.
Lokendra Bisht, a social activist at Uttarkashi, said, “The smell is unbearable as a huge quantum of waste is being dumped near Tamba Khaani tunnel on the road adjacent to the river Ganga and sometimes workers are involved in burning the waste which is hazardous to the environment,” he said. Balwant Bisht, executive officer of Uttarkashi municipal board, admitted of the dumping and added tenders have been floated to operate alternate dumping site at Tiloth area.
In Chamoli, where Badrinath Dham is situation, a video had gone viral last week, showing local district panachayat workers dumping garbage into Alaknanda river. District magistrate, Chamoli Himanshu Khurana, lodged a case against the workers after the video went viral. “I have also directed the officials to look for land so that waste can be disposed of scientifically there,” Khurana said.
In Uttarkashi, where Yamunotri is located, sub-divisional magistrate, Shalini Negi, admitted that pilgrims were dumping waste and old clothes into the rivers. “We request them not to throw clothes in the rivers but pilgrims still do it as they believe it is an act of faith,” she said.
Vipin Kumar, an environmentalist who studies waste generation for Disaster Mitigation and Management Centre, Dehradun, said it is appalling to notice that the waste, both dry as well as wet, is being dumped into the river at Yamunotri which indicates that the waste management interventions are not being adhered to, leaving fragile Himalayan mountains in higher reaches polluted. “With over four lakh pilgrims having visited the four major shrines so far and more than 10 lakhs having registered, one can very well imagine the amount of waste that will be generated during the Yatra period, which will go till November. We don’t have a sound waste management system and most visitors don’t throw garbage at designated places,” he said.
Ravi Bisht, Swachh Bharat mission manager, Uttarakhand, said their focus is to form quick response teams after examining the issue of waste being dumped in the river and issue directions to district administration to ensure that no waste enters the rivers in Char Dham route.”
He said according to the Swacchta survey report, the door-to-door collection work has begun in 1152 wards of the state’s urban local bodies while source segregation is being done in 1040 wards of the urban local bodies including Joshimath, Uttarkashi.
When contacted, Dilip Jawalkar, tourism secretary, said, “This time we have increased the number of sanitary staff 1.5 times compared to 2019 for better solid waste management. We have also installed several compacters on the Char Dham route and also Sulabh International has been mandated to collect the waste at Kedarnath which is brought down to Sonprayag, from where it is sent further ahead.”
Jawalkar said the issue of pilgrims throwing clothes and other religious materials came up in a review meeting.
“Since it is an issue of faith and effective enforcement, the officials are appealing not to throw any kind of waste into the rivers on the Char Dham routes,” said Jawalkar.
Subodh Uniyal, cabinet minster and in charge of Badrinath shrine, said, “At Badrinath, three solid waste management vehicles have been deployed and we currently are able to segregate 60 per cent of waste generated through the processing plant installed at Devdarshini near Badrinath. However, the problem is that compacter there were damaged there due to glacier movement and once it is repaired, we will be able to segregate 100 per cent of waste in the shrine area”, he said.
Pawan Uniyal, temple priest and former president Mandir Samiti Yamunotri said, “The pilgrims throwing clothes in the rivers here are due to superstitious beliefs. We have been appealing to pilgrims to donate their clothes to poor people but due to their faith it is becoming difficult to convince them”.
Harish Rana, a local in Chamoli, said, “We welcome pilgrims here but at the same time we don’t want them to pollute these sacred mountains and rivers by throwing waste here and there.”