Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh, part of one territory before August 2019 hosted two momentous events in past one month, under the G20 presidency of India. Both these events will go a long way in establishing both these regions at the global tourism map and would complement the gigantic efforts made by the administration in these two UTs to find the lost vigour in tourism sector. Tourism in general is getting a fillip from past few years in Jammu and Kashmir. In the year 2022, J&K regi
stered a record footfall of 1.88 crore tourists, and the number is expected to cross the two crore-mark for the year 2023. These are domestic tourism figures, but foreign tourists arrivals is also expected to grow. While we have the annual yatra to the holy cave shrine of Amarnath in south Kashmir and Shri Mata Vaishno Devi shrine in Katra, the administration has been able to open new tourism possibilities with a number of new sites across the UT.
This week saw North India’s largest Zoo, Jambu Zoo opening for the public even as the Tirupati Balaji temple is all set to open for devotees next week. In the neighbouring Ladakh, things have also been shaping up in a better way since the region’s reorganisation into a full-fledged union territory, to promote tourism, while also keeping in the mind the long array of fears and concerns regarding its fragile environment, mountains, glaciers, land, people and culture, which Ladakh has been long battling for a long time now.
Over the past three and a half years ago, the union territory administration has made sustained efforts through different interventions, and ever since Brigadier B D Mishra took over as the new Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh, there have been a spate of changes for the better. A number of decisions have been taken in recent days towards the preservation of Ladakh’s unique and fragile climate in view of the ongoing tourist season. A camp of Border Roads Organisation (BRO) has been recently relocated from Chumathang hot springs, as one of the many measures undertaken for the preservation and protection of the natural attraction in Ladakh, even as various measures for immediate action and long-term planning to ensure sustainable development of the hot springs for the benefit of both locals and tourists have also been finalised.
These include removal of the existing structures around the hot springs which are in a dilapidated condition and are non-functional, a sustained cleanliness drive with focus on community participation, besides an awareness drive among the locals who are running restaurants, hotels, shops etc near the ‘Hot Springs’ to ensure achieving the goal of litter free and open defecation free Chumathang.
We have also witnessed the administration deciding to revamp the world-famous Khardungla by creating parking spaces at the top of the pass, while removing the old structures and non-functional amenities from the area and streamlining the flow of visitors to the pass, so as to strike a balance between tourism promotion and safeguarding the ecosystem surrounding Khardungla.
In another significant development, the administration has decided to push the subsidy schemes specifically tailored for small hotels and guest houses to ensure the timely installation of Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs) and Effluent Treatment Plants (ETPs) by hotels. Overall, the administrations in both the UTs have been moving in the right direction with regards to the measures needed to promote the tourism.
