Proposed NH-701A promises connectivity across Kashmir but raises serious ecological, cultural and governance concerns amid fragile Himalayan terrain and exemptions, writes M Saleem Beg
In October 2024, the Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways issued a tender notice for a two-lane highway with paved shoulders, NH-701A. The road is proposed to run from Shopian to Magam via Kellar, Pakherpora, Yousmarg, and Doodhpathri, the names that evoke both the pastoral traditions of Kashmir and its fragile alpine meadows.
The project appears to address a long-standing demand: better connectivity for remote valleys, which remain cut off during winters, hindering trade, tourism, and healthcare access.
But the Himalayan context complicates this promise. Each slope cut weakens fragile geology, each forest loss erodes carbon sinks and habitats, and each stream diversion disrupts hydrological systems. NH-701A thus encapsulates the Himalayan dilemma of pursuing connectivity without sacrificing ecological integrity and community well-being.
Credible Interventions
Since the 1990s, India’s environmental governance system has developed instruments to address such dilemmas. The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification of 2006 provides a framework for evaluating projects that may significantly alter land use, biodiversity, water systems, and social structures. It requires project proponents to prepare detailed assessments, subject them to scrutiny, and invite public consultation, ensuring in principle that development decisions account for ecological and social costs rather than being taken in isolation.
A striking example of this dilution is the 2022 notification by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC), which exempted highway projects within 100 kilometres of the Line of Control from prior environmental clearance. The rationale was strategic: enabling rapid road-building in sensitive border areas. However, this exemption applies not only to strategic projects but also to civilian highways such as NH-701A, which traverse ecologically fragile zones. This exemption effectively bypasses the structured scrutiny of EIA, particularly the crucial step of public consultation.
Yet, the Ministry itself recognised the risks of blanket exemptions. Its Office Memorandum of February 2023 listed safeguards, including mandatory risk assessments, landslide management plans, eco-fragility studies, tunnelling impact assessments, and detailed hydrological surveys. These conditions highlight the paradox: while projects may be exempted from clearance, they are not exempted from ecological reality.
Fragile Ecology
The Kashmir region is marked by high seismicity, complex geology, and sharp climatic variations. These conditions make large-scale infrastructure particularly hazardous.
The proposed NH-701A crosses zones fed by glacial meltwater streams and springs. Disturbances to these systems can have cascading effects. Sediment loads from slope-cutting may clog irrigation channels, alter stream courses, and degrade water quality. In the context of climate change, when glaciers are already retreating at alarming rates, additional anthropogenic stress compounds vulnerability.
Sensitive Areas
Yousmarg and Doodhpathri are biodiversity-rich zones, home to alpine meadows, medicinal plants, and wildlife corridors. Fragmentation by highways disrupts animal movement and increases road kill. The felling of heritage-value trees not only reduces forest cover but also undermines carbon sequestration capacity, crucial in a warming climate. While compensatory afforestation is mandated at a 1:10 ratio, ecological equivalence is difficult to achieve; a centuries-old deodar cannot be replaced by a sapling plantation.
Road construction in geologically young and tectonically active Himalayas involves slope excavation, which destabilises terrain and increases landslide frequency. Kashmir’s history of earthquakes, coupled with high rainfall events, makes risk assessment not optional but essential.
The Flip Side
Besides, the Shopian–Magam highway raises critical socio-cultural questions. The Gujjars and Bakarwals, Kashmir’s nomadic pastoralists, depend on high-altitude meadows for seasonal grazing. Roads fragment these commons, reduce pasture availability, and disrupt migratory routes. Loss of access to grazing lands undermines livelihoods and accelerates the marginalisation of indigenous groups already struggling against economic and political vulnerabilities.
Kashmir’s landscapes are not only ecological but deeply cultural. Alpine meadows, glacial streams, and old-growth forests are embedded in collective memory, folklore, and identity. Roads that cut through these spaces reshape not just the physical terrain but the symbolic geography of communities, erasing heritage trees, sacred groves, and traditional water systems that rarely figure in engineering blueprints.
In this context, the Ministry’s 2023 memorandum underscores the multi-departmental responsibilities within the government system. It places the onus on the Department of Forests, Ecology and Environment to oversee biodiversity and eco-fragility studies, while the Department of Disaster Management is tasked with evaluating landslide and seismic risks.
The Jal Shakti department is required to assess water catchments and hydrological impacts, the Animal and Sheep Husbandry department to safeguard grazing rights, and the departments of Tribal Affairs and Social Welfare to address the social and community consequences of such projects.
The Debate
The debate over NH-701A reflects a broader Himalayan dilemma: balancing the need for connectivity with the imperative of ecological preservation. While infrastructure in border regions is vital for security, administration, and development, that very security is weakened when ecological degradation triggers disasters, displaces communities, and undermines livelihoods. A landslide or silted stream makes no distinction between strategic and civilian infrastructure.
The proposed Shopian–Magam highway is not simply an engineering project; it is a litmus test for environmental governance in Jammu and Kashmir. The exemptions granted by the 2022 notification should not be interpreted as a licence for unchecked construction. Instead, they must be balanced with the safeguards outlined in the 2023 memorandum, alongside robust institutional coordination and community participation.
(Former DG Tourism Jammu and Kashmir, the author now heads INTACH.)
