Editorial: Address ecological concerns

The resignation of Ravi Chopra from the chairmanship of the Supreme Court-mandated Char Dham panel illustrates how the environmentalists are getting increasingly frustrated over the continued apathy of the government in protecting the fragile ecology of the region. In his resignation letter to the apex court, the chairman of the high powered committee has pointed out how the union road transport ministry had ignored the panel’s recommendations regarding the road width in the Char Dham Highway Development Project (CDHDP) in Uttarakhand. A wider road means additional slope cutting, blasting, tunnelling, dumping, and deforestation — all of which will further destabilise the Himalayan terrain, and increase vulnerability to landslides and flash floods. This was clearly noticeable during the last monsoon season when many roads were destroyed. Ignoring the panel’s recommendations against widening the roads that come under the project’s ambit, the central ministry is going ahead with it. The 900-km CDHDP, a flagship project of the NDA government, has courted controversy since it was launched. It was fast-tracked without assessing the impact and the carrying capacity of the region. Several environmentalists, geologists and climate scientists have voiced objections about the project and the faulty environmental clearance process. After the Defence Ministry moved an appeal in the Supreme Court, seeking a double-lane road having a carriageway width of 7 meters to meet the requirement of the Army, the issue has acquired a more strategic dimension with national security being cited as the main ground.

While there is no denying the fact that the security needs and development of the region are important, the fragility of the region cannot be ignored. Already, the ever-increasing number of tourists visiting the State is putting pressure on the mountain ecosystem. The successive governments have been allowing unregulated infrastructure construction in the State in order to cater to the booming tourism economy, thereby causing environmental degradation. Uttarakhand is a mountainous State predisposed to earthquakes, landslides, flash-floods, cloudbursts and avalanches, with the hilly terrain accounting for around 90% of its total geographical region. Glacial lakes, which contain ice boulders or glacial sediment are not as stable as open lakes and can burst their banks. The devastating 2013 Kedarnath floods were the result of glacial lake outbursts in the region triggered by heavy rains. There are 2,000 glacial lakes and water bodies in the Himalayan region and their number in the region has increased in the last five decades, indicating how severe glacier melting has been due to global warming. The entire Hindu-Kush Himalayan region has emerged as a climate change hotspot. A 2019 study spanning 40 years of satellite observations across India, China, Nepal and Bhutan, had warned that Himalayan glaciers have been melting twice as fast since the start of this century due to climate change. Uttarakhand has witnessed an increase in natural disasters induced by extreme climatic events.

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