Tourists welcome, not their cars! It’s time to rethink hill tourism

The deputy commissioner, Shimla, announced on Tuesday that 300,000 vehicles had entered the town in the last two weeks due to the tourist rush. That is 15,000 vehicles per day; Shimla has parking for just about 5,000 vehicles. The situation is no different in Dehradun, Nainital, Mussoorie, Manali, Dharamshala and other hill stations in the North. And it’s getting worse every year.

The tourists, of course, suffer, stuck in jams for hours, sometimes for nights, without food, water or toilet facilities. Half their vacation time is spent on the roads. The real and continuing price, however, is paid by the permanent residents of these once quiet, idyllic, British-era towns, who are practically imprisoned in their houses with no space left on the roads even for walking. I live near Mashobra, about 12 km from Shimla for six months every year, and have decided to never, but NEVER, drive into Shimla during my stay here. There’s no telling if I’ll ever be able to make it back to my house!

State govts should have foreseen this, with tourist numbers growing by 43% (2023 figure over the previous year), rising incomes, and the desperation of families to escape the heat and pollution of our cities. But govts never planned for this nightmare, and when they did start making some plans, they were all the wrong ones.

One big reason for this tourist explosion has been the construction of expensive, environmentally disastrous four-lane highways and expressways in the mountainous terrain of Himachal and Uttarakhand. Before the Kalka-Shimla four-lane highway was built (it is still not complete), the average number of cars entering Shimla every day was about 4,000-5,000; it is now 15,000-20,000. It’s even worse in Manali, with 25,000 vehicles crossing the Atal tunnel (below Rohtang pass) every day during peak season. The state govt is a silent spectator: it took the National Green Tribunal to impose a daily cap of 1,500 vehicles for the Rohtang pass to prevent it from becoming another Karol Bagh, in more ways than one.

The Shimla and Manali mistake is now being repeated, with Mussoorie the victim this time. A 26-km elevated expressway has been approved to connect Dehradun and Mussoorie: we are told this will reduce drive time to just 26 minutes. This is a disaster in the making, even without the thousands of trees that will be felled and the families that will be displaced by the project. The Shimla/ Manali experience shows that the number of vehicles headed for Mussoorie shall triple or quadruple; what happens to them once they reach Mussoorie? The town has even less parking space than Shimla and can barely accommodate those who come just to meet Ruskin Bond!

Bureaucracies are loath to think out of the box, and politicians are happy to sanction capital-intensive projects like roads and multi-storeyed parking to their favoured contractors. But this comfortable, parabiotic arrangement has to change given the geology and terrain, one cannot keep ‘widening’ roads and excavating more parking spaces indefinitely. What our mountain destinations need are fewer highways and more cable/ropeways — that way they can keep getting more tourists but fewer vehicles. Instead of an elevated highway, the proposed Dehradun-Mussoorie cable system could have been fast-tracked, reducing vehicular overload at one-tenth the cost. It is to Himachal’s credit that it has seen the light and has approved four major rope-way projects: Parwanoo-Shimla, Dharamshala-McLeodganj, Manali-Rohtang, and Kullu-Bijli Mahadev. Many more are needed.

The Union govt too needs to play a role in curbing this vehicular overtourism by not approving projects like the Char Dham highway, which is effectively a death warrant for Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri. It should put a hold on all four-laning projects in these states and fast-track central approvals and funding for ropeways. More flights should be started to these states — in Himachal, currently all its four airports are being utilised at below 50% of their capacity. More helicopter services should be issued with adequate safety protocols in place so that accidents like the recent one in Kedarnath are avoided. Most importantly, the govt should expand the skeletal rail network in all mountain states that have tourism potential, and not just for strategic reasons. In 75 years, not an inch of rail line has been added to what the British left behind. This will not only reduce the vehicular tsunamis, but also add an entirely novel experience for visitors.

Harsh physical or fiscal barriers such as e-passes, capping numbers of vehicles entering a state or even excessive tolls, or entry fees should be avoided as they cause inconvenience and will not serve the purpose in the long run. It is better to provide the tourist an attractive alternative to using his car rather than simply taxing him or embroiling him in red tape. The lazy solution is usually the worst.

The vision should be: we welcome tourists, but not their cars.

END OF ARTICLE