When tourists visit Pahalgam, they take selfies near the apple trees that dot the landscape on the way to this beautiful tourist resort. Imagine what will happen if the beauty of this landscape is allowed to perish? There will be no reason for tourists to visit Kashmir.
More importantly, it will become well-nigh impossible for Kashmiris to live in Kashmir as plastic waste is choking our forests, streams , irrigation canals and wetlands.
The Govt of J&K’s data reveals that agriculture landholding in J&K has come down drastically. As per a report published on 10th agriculture census (2015–16) by the Financial Commissioner Revenue J&K, the total number of operational land holdings in Jammu & Kashmir was 14.16 lakh that operated on 8.42 lakh hectare of farmland.
This was 14.49 lakh holdings operating on 8.95 lakh hectare of land in the 9th agriculture census ( 2010–11). This indicates that that in a mere five-year period, J&K had witnessed a decrease of 2.27 % in the number of holdings and a decrease of 5.92 % in the operating area under agriculture. The average holding size in J&K during the 10th agriculture census (2015–16) stood at 0.59 hectare. This has come down further in the 2021–22.
As per the 2015–16 agriculture census, around 84 % of farmers in J&K were marginal farmers and 11.29 % , 4.10 % , 0.78 % and 0.04 % farmers had small, semi-medium, medium and large land holdings respectively. Pertinently the marginal farmers are those who have less than 1 hectare of land holdings, small farmers have 1–2 hectare of land holdings, semi-medium farmers have 2–4 hectare of land holdings, medium farmers have 4–10 hectare of land holdings, and large farmers have more than 10 hectare of land holdings.
In the 9th agriculture census, the average land holding in J&K was 0.62 hectare and between 2010–11 and 2015–16 agriculture censuses, there has been a decrease of 0.03 hectare of agriculture land holding.
The unofficial figures say that the agricultural land has shrunk further in the last five–six years and is now only around 0.5 hectare. If this downward spiral continues, I believe that in the next 25 to 30 years, 90 % of the rural population in J&K, especially in the Kashmir valley, will be landless. We will see only concrete structures on our agricultural land.
It will have serious consequences for our agriculture economy and tourism will be severely impacted as well. There will be more floods as our wetlands and lakes are choked and the built up concrete area doesn’t allow water to seep into the ground.
Unscientific waste management & RBM
In the years to come shrinking farmlands will not only impact our agriculture and tourism in Kashmir but will also have a direct impact on management of our municipal solid waste as well.
In J&K, 90% of the urban local bodies, including the Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC), Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) and smaller councils and committees have no official landfill sites. Waste is not treated as per the Municipal Solid Waste Rules 2016 .
In Srinagar city, the only garbage dump site located at Achan Saidpora is choked and emits obnoxious smell especially during summer months. For last 4 months entire downtown area is suffering from bad smell.
This was earlier on felt around Eig Gah and Dr Ali Jan road, but for the last 2 years this has engulfed the entire downtown upto Lal Bazar and Hazratbal.
Enough land isn’t available in our towns and cities to set up scientific landfill sites. In hill stations this is even more of a challenge, especially in Pahalgam, Gulmarg , Sonamarg , Yusmarg, Doodhpathri. This is challenging in Patnitop, Doda and Udhampur as well where municipal solid waste is dumped unscientifically in forests or waterbodies.
During the last decade, the SMC has not been able to acquire even 50–60 acre of land for creating a landfill as an alternative to the overburdened Achan Saidpora site. In 2017, the then deputy chief minister Nirmal Singh, who was also the Minister for Housing & Urban Development Department (HUDD), while responding to a question from a legislator of Srinagar, Mubarak Gul, said on the floor of the J&K assembly that a committee had been constituted under the district magistrate of Srinagar to look for land to create a new landfill site in Srinagar but the committee could not find even 10 acre of land to set up the new landfill site.
Landmass getting choked
It is a well-known fact that Srinagar and a majority of the districts in J&K have small landholdings as the limited landmass is getting choked due to urbanisation. Most of our land is already occupied by shopping complexes or housing colonies and finding large patches of land to set up landfill sites or garbage dump sites is a herculean task.This is the reason that a majority of our water bodies, such as lakes, wetlands, rivers and streams, have become waste dump sites and this author had to move a formal application before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to ensure a clean-up of the Doodh Ganga river in the Srinagar–Budgam area. This waterbody has been used to dump solid waste at multiple locations by local residents. The Geology and Mining Department auctioned this stream for riverbed mining with effect from September 2021 to 2026. The project proponent did mining as deep as 10 metre while only mining till 1 metre depth is allowed. This has been stopped almost but in other areas like Sukhnag in Beeru Sail , Rohmu in Pulwama or Rambiara in Shopian the illegal riverbed mining continues.
Huge cranes and JCB are also used for extracting sand, boulders and gravel, which is in violation of the J&K Minor Mineral Concession Rules 2016 and the guidelines of J&K State Environmental Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA).
In addition, the SMC and a few other government bodies have set up around 13 wastewater pump stations on the banks of Doodh Ganga, which flush out untreated water and sewage into the stream in violation of Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974. Keeping these violations under consideration and after providing the material facts, the NGT imposed a penalty of Rs 35 crore on the government of J&K in October this year
Plastic Waste in Tourist Places
Heaps of plastic waste can be seen at the tourist places such as Gulmarg, Pahalgam, Sonamarg, Yusmarg and Doodhpathri. The government should seriously think about banning plastic at these tourist spots. The pilgrims visiting the Amarnath cave are littering in the high altitude mountains, which is even more dangerous because the waste does not decompose easily in the freezing weather at such high altitudes.In Srinagar city alone, around 500 metric tonne of waste is generated daily and this quantity goes up during the tourist rush in summers. Unfortunately not even 10 % of this waste is treated. Same is the case with other tourist places of J&K such as Gulmarg, Sonamarg and Pahalgam.
Conclusion
Chief Secretary has given clear directions to ULBs and other agencies to make sure segregation of waste at source from October 2023. This should be done more seriously in tourist places. Huge tourist influx will destroy Kashmir if this is not managed scientifically. It is better to ban the sale of all food material packed in plastic. We need scientific landfill sites at different tourist locations so that all the solid waste is treated scientifically.
Dr Raja Muzaffar Bhat is an Acumen Fellow. He is also Anant Fellow for Climate Action , Anant National University Ahmedabad