The environmental concerns are mostly focused on the twin tracks leading to the Amarnath cave in Kashmir. But few people are aware that the easily accessible and fast-receding Thajiwas glacier overlooking Sonamarg plays host to hundreds of tourists daily, during and after the yatra. The government has even permitted commercial sledging, laid a pony track, and a road to the spot, reports RS Gull and Sara Wani.
A Google search for the Thajiwas glacier throws up thousands of results, mostly photographs of picnickers making merry on the dark black, muddy glacier. Many results pertain to the details by various travel agencies about how to trek to the spot. There is almost nothing that offers any academic or scholarly detail of the glacier, as is the case with Siachen (Ladakh) or Kolhai (Pahalgam).
On a routine day of this tourist season, the track to the glacier is lined up with trekkers from the day break, some riding ponies while others huffing and puffing to foot the 5 kms and 9000 feet, steep trek. Scene remains the same throughout the day and crowd starts thinning only by 5 pm. Tourists flocking the spot are mostly from non-snow regions of India who want to experience the snow. While experiencing it, they play with it, skid over it and hire sledges to take rides up and down. “We charge Rs 150 per head for a sledge ride and we do have few interested tourists a day,” Alf Din said. “It is a livelihood for us and we do it routinely as long as the weather permits.”
During the tourist season, horsemen do brisk business “We charge Rs 850 for a horse ride from Sonamarg to the Thajiwas glaciers and return,” said Munir Khan, who has barely rested since May when the tourist season started. “Yatra was peak season and once it was over, we descended down to Sonamarg where we do get a tourist a day and sometimes two per day.” There are nearly 500 horses serving tourists on this trek besides scores of taxis and buses which have set up a sprawling parking lot, not far away from the glacier.
At the snout of the glacier where a roaring stream flows down , there is a camping site adjacent to which are situated a number of makeshift shops vending cigarettes, bottled water, juices, packaged junk of all kinds and ranges, besides hot tea and a few woolen items. Some vendors offer non-slippery rubber shoes and sticks to help people walk over the snow-body on rent. At the camp site, hundreds of mules are parked and one has to wade through the knee deep dung to negotiate a ride.
All this activity has left its tell-tale marks on the glacier. It has turned completely black and dirty. The glacier has a thick coat of dust and grease with heaps of garbage at few places. The trek that leads to the glacier is littered with used plastic bottles and discarded junk packaging which is highly detrimental for an ecologically fragile zone such as this.
Thajiwas is a little cousin of Kolohoi glacier. The two major glaciers are located on either side of the foothills housing the cave shrine of Amarnath. Unlike Thajiwas, Kolohoi is not easily accessible. Of late, both the snow-bodies, which are vital water resource of Kashmir, are receding massively. Kolohoi has reduced from 11 sq QMs to 2.63 sq kms in the last three decades.
Not much literature is available about Thajiwas. “It is no more a glacier. It is only a remnant of a glacier that we are losing,” Kashmir’s distinguished glaciologist, Dr Shakeel Ramshoo, an authority on ecology, said. “It is just a matter of time.” Ramshoo says this glacier that was dominating the entire gorge a few years back but it is receding very fast because thousands of people are being deliberately permitted to making it a playing field. “There is still a possibility of arresting its speedy melting but it can happen only if the authorities act and stop permitting the snow body from being exploited for tourist reasons,” Ramshoo, who just returned from Germany, asserted.
Ironically, while Kashmir is sensitive to its fragile ecology, impact on a glacier like Thajiwas is missing from the overall narrative that seems restricted to the twin tracks leading to the cave shrine. Given the movement of more than a million people – up and down, the perennial exercise is definitely a major issue because there are cores of such glaciers on the twin track, some of them still in a position that they can be protected.
Indian Youth Climate Network thatran a small scale project on waste management at Baltal offered its findings recently. An IYCN activist described part of their first day experience at Baltal like this:
“There was insufficient number of toilets for such huge number of yatris. The ponywalas, labourers, even yatris were using open air toilets right next to the Sindh river. The ponies drank water, people washed clothes in the stream and there were clutters of polythene and wrappers seen floating on the surface of the stream. This highly contaminated water was used for cooking and drinking purpose. Once there was a carcass of a pony lying in the stream for five days.
The whole area was stinking badly and finally it was CRPF men who removed it. There were no dustbins anywhere in sight at the camp or on the track. So naturally there was litter everywhere on the roads, track and the slopes. There were thousands of empty plastic bottles scattered around the region. One rag picker told us that he and his team gathered at least 10,000 bottles every day from the camp area. The rag pickers were not allowed to go upwards on the track. The garbage collected from the camp and the Bhandaras was dumped on the outskirts of the camp. It seemed like a small hillock of dirt and filth. At some places un-segregated garbage was buried in the pits. There is a thick blanket of snow in the region during winters and when this snow melts in summers, the garbage flows down into the river. This results in further contamination of Sindh River.”
Asserting that pilgrims walk through “piles of garbage, water bottles, and occasional horse carcasses”, the IYCN members told Kashmir Life that Sindh is turning into a cesspool owing to the heavy flow of sewage and open defecation in the area. “The water is unfit for potable purposes. The heavy flow of solid waste results in the outbreak of water-borne diseases in dozens of neighboring villages after the yatra is over,” coordinator Reetu Asrani said. “Contaminated water flows from bathrooms, tent areas, and Bhandaras directly into streams leading to water pollution. Heaps of garbage & waste products are also dumped into the river. Tons of plastic bottles and polythene choke streams at many places restricting the flow of water. The glacier-fed streams running alongside the cave are also turning filthy.”
The larger reality is that the yatra has changed Sonamarg – Kashmir’s golden meadow, which was accessible to a select section of tourists, mostly foreigners, interested in trekking, white water rafting or early spring, high altitude skiing. It is the yatra that is changing the profile of a serene and calm place, making it a hustling bustling township. As the pilgrim crowds have gone home with the conclusion of the yatra, it is the time for leisure tourists.
“We have a full unit of a TV crew stationed in the town for last many days shooting the Star Plus TV Teri Meri Love Story over the peaks on the track to Thajiwas,” explains an official of the Sonamarg Development Authority (SDA). “Right now we do not have 100 percent occupancy that lasted during the yatra but still we get enough of tourists to occupy one-fourth.” The highway town will remain open for a month and then snow will take over.
Officials say the accessibility to Sonamarg, 82 km from Srinagar on way to Ladakh, will change in the near future as the government is planning a six-km tunnel between Gagangeer village and Sonamarg to make Sino-Indian borders accessible round the year.
Sonamarg was a virgin meadow till the Baltal route was thrown open as an alternate trek to the Amarnath cave on July 18, 1999. By and large, it was used by the soldiers (Army’s High Altitude Warfare School operates from Sonamarg during summer and moves to Gulmarg in winter) and trekkers. Traditionally, it has been the base camp of a major trek that passes along several mountain lakes –Vishansar, Kishansar, Gadsar, Satsar and Gangabal, besides Thajiwas.
In 2006 when some bureaucrats sabotaged Alferd Ford International’s offer of creating the Himalayan Ski Village (HSV), an offer that neighboring Himachal Pradesh finally bagged, the-then government planned a detailed blueprint of Rs 300 crore investments for converting Sonamarg into a modern tourist village with focus on skiing. Officials of Asian Development Bank who visited the spot were keen to help J&K. The plan envisaged engaging the best tourist designer to create a concept and futuristic infrastructure including everything from health clubs to golf course with emphasis on white water rafting and trekking. With the fall of the Ghulam Nabi Azad led government in 2008 over Amarnath land row created a disruption and a change in the overall policy structure by the new dispensation later upset the cart completely.
Future plans afoot suggest the town will no more remain a summer destination that has less than 300 permanent residents living with detachments of the armed force and the border roads organization under 15 ft of snow for more than half a year. The change has set in.
Currently, Sonamarg appears a fast developing town. Local entrepreneurs assert that more than Rs 10 crore private sector investments in hospitality sector are at various stages of implementation. Hafiz brothers live in Kangan. Prior to insurgency, they were running a high-end restaurant Hi Harmukh in the main town with around five rooms. It remained locked for a decade. In 2000 they started looking towards Sonamarg. “We started with 22 rooms and right now we operate 44,” said Farooq A Hafiz, who owns Snowlands Hotel in Sonamarg. “By now we might have invested more than Rs 6 crore and we do have expansion plans.” He sees the duration of the yatra directly linked to the development of the place. “Our business is solely linked to the yatra.”
In his immediate neighbourhood, his brother Tariq is in the middle of building a huge hotel, the Sindh Resorts that might initially have nearly 50 rooms. Abdul Majid Sofi of Ganderbal has set up Namroz Resorts with 50 rooms. This is in addition to the old players, most of who are not housed on the banks of the river. “It will grow because the peak bed capacity demand during yatra is 3000. Right now, by all means, it is only 500 that is available,” Hafiz says. The SDA has introduced creation of tented towns and there are six camping sites being developed. The state owned JK Tourism Development Corporation is planning a major hotel even as SDA has invested substantially in creating certain facilities.
SDA CEO, Mohammad Youuf Bhat says the people invest because it pays. “Even SDA which is no commercial agency is making better money,” Bhat points out. “Last year, we generated a revenue of less than Rs 6.50 lakh and this year we have already crossed one crore rupees.”
The SDA, locals said, has helped Sonamarg take off. Ever since it was created, it might have invested more than Rs 20 crore in creating various facilities. The projects that were entrusted to the authority are innumerable. Apart from the tourist reception centre in the main town, it has set up or is nearing completion projects like Children’s Parks, International Youth Hostel, Yatri Niwas, Island Retreat Park (Hung), Durinar Glacier Sarbal, development of Gangangir, Sutkudi, Lashpatri, and Yuchmarg as satellite tourist spots, an office complex, shelter sheds and a picnic spot at Thajiwas, Pony Park, Toll-bar, mobile toilets, a slaughter house, a Phatak, an alternative road from Shutkudi to Thajiwas and an eco-friendly resort between Nilgrath and Sarbal. “It changed Sonamarg,” admits Hafiz. “Because it gave permissions for construction which helped people invest.”
But the SDA’s inability to manage a fine balance between the commerce and ecology is a tell-all story. There are thousands of plastic bottles and bags and heaps of garbage visible on the trek to Thajiwas and in the main bowl. Right now, part of the garbage is being collected by the SDA and buried as most of the hotels use soakage dumps within to manage their solid waste. The government, Bhat said, has already approved setting up of a sewage treatment plant and it must be ready early next year.
Gradually, points out Hafiz, the situation is improving in the town. “For all these years, we had a single-phased power supply line and this year the government is feeding us with a three-phase line – 24 x 7,” Hafiz said. “But there are two critical issues that the government must take care of immediately. Firstly, it must speed up implementation of a 3-kms bypass that will decongest the town at peak yatra time as the BRO is working slowly. Secondly, they must house the local garrison somewhere in the periphery because they have occupied 100 kanals in the main bowl that impacts nearly 1000 kanals around it.”
As Kashmir and its policy makers are taking the livelihood route to invade the valley’s virgin spots, the fragile nature of the highly sensitive corners is missing from the debate. “We are aware of it,” junior Tourism Minister Nair Aslam Wani said. But he did not offer any idea, if at all the glacier figures anywhere in the government’s priority. Even the civil society seems omitting issues like Thajiwas from the narrative it is keen to develop. Let Thajiwas survive as a key barometer of Kashmir’s health.
