A perilous highway to salvation in the Himalayas : Valley Vision

The 900-kilometre long, 12-metre wide, two-lane Char Dham Highway Project to boost religious tourism to four shrines will end up as an endeavour with catastrophic consequences for the mountain ecology. The conclusions of a scientific paper written recently by a group of authors led by Jürgen Mey of the Institute of Environmental Science and Geography, University of Potsdam, Germany, confirm the worst fears expressed by the experts. This supposedly all-weather road project, at an outlay of ₹12,000 crore, was initiated despite intense opposition by environmental organisations in Uttarakhand, who called it unscientific.

Domino effect

The paper presents the study results of fully or partially road-blocking landslides between Rishikesh and Joshimath, along National Highway (NH-7) in Uttarakhand. Based on instances of more than 300 landslides along the 250 km-long corridor after exceptionally high rainfall between September and October 2022, the study identified “309 fully or partially road-blocking landslides along the 247 km long road, which amounts to an average landslide density of 1.25 landslides per kilometre”.

While identifying variables such as slope angle, rainfall amount, and lithology as the controlling factors, the study singles out “the road-widening [as] having a doubling impact on the road-blocking landslides”. The construction has now proved to be the prime cause of landslides, whose occurrences have doubled over the years. Deaths and accidents on the Char Dham road have become a daily occurrence during the pilgrimage season. This conclusion supports the earlier expert committee reports — overruled by the authorities — that had flagged improper construction practices during the road widening work in the Uttarakhand Himalayas.

The researchers have also predicted an uptick in summer monsoon precipitation due to elevation-dependent warming in the years to come. Thus, landslides and fatalities will become more frequent as climate change prediction models suggest more frequent extreme rainfall events. The study underscores that important environmental caveats must be respected before commencing any mammoth engineering project in the Indian Himalayas.

The authorities put forth the reason for wanting “smoother” and “faster all-weather” connectivity for pilgrim tourists from the plains and the armed forces and armaments, but the engineering interventions have been done with scant regard to the local geology and environment. The government has ignored its original policy framework recommending “best practice” norms for infrastructural expansion in mountainous regions to minimise the negative impact on the mountain ecosystems and landscapes.

The project, which was initiated under the ‘Char Dham Pariyojana’, is in fundamental violation of all environmental norms and conservation strategies that need to be followed in the Himalayas.

The government used a technical loophole and divided the project into 50-plus smaller projects to bypass environmental clearance and impact assessment reports. Calling the project a ‘geological and ecological fraud, the petitioners have argued that the roads were longer than 100 km in some stretches and would have a cumulative impact on the whole region. Land encroachment combined with the blasting and the cutting of slopes for developmental projects causes additional stress on a fragile ecosystem. One accepts that roads are the lifeline of remote mountainous regions, but such megaprojects must fully consider the region’s environmental fragility.

Though the project began as a tourism project, it was finally defended in the Supreme Court of India as a defence-related requirement for moving troops and armaments, ignoring the point that the defence forces can airlift troops and heavy artillery during emergencies. The Court initially favouring a narrower intermediate road width for the highways (5.5 m), based on the recommendation of an expert committee appointed in 2019 and a Ministry of Road Transport and Highways’ circular of 2018. But the Court finally permitted the Union Government to go ahead with the project on widening the hill roads from a national security angle.

No scientific assessment

It is a matter of concern that such massive projects are getting the go-ahead without any scientific assessment especially in an unstable and fragile region such as the Indian Himalayas. A key question is this: is mountain morphology, with steep slopes and sharp gradients, easily amenable to human engineering? Unlike the hinterland in the mountains, the steep gradients of the Uttarakhand Himalaya or the Himachal Himalaya make them dynamically heterogeneous in terms of climatic variables and hydrological and tectonic processes at every turn of the mountain path.

A widened road faces problems now as it is constantly blocked by recurrent landslides. It is most likely that this project will end up not being what it was envisioned to be. Not only would the movement of troops or armaments be delayed in critical moments but also much time and resources would have to be used to clear or reconstruct damaged road stretches. Year-wise statistics show a rise in the loss of human lives. In the last four years, 160 people have lost their life in landslide incidents in Uttarakhand, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.

The entire region has been destabilised due to massive construction activities. Ground subsidence is now recognised as a “silent disaster” in many parts of the Himalayas. In a study published in Scientific Reports this year, widely reported land deformation in Joshimath town is being attributed to uncontrolled anthropogenic activities, infrastructural development and inadequate drainage systems. Recently, it has been reported that the Tungnath temple in the Rudraprayag district is facing serious issues such as subsidence, weakening foundation and shifting wall slates, which have caused water leakage especially during the rainy season.

Such incidents have not impacted the government’s thinking on its developmental models for such fragile areas. Unsurprisingly, the Border Roads Organisation is now seeking clearance to widen the Gangotri-Dharasu stretch in the fragile Bhagirathi Eco-Sensitive Zone, whose integrity is important for the ecology of the Ganga river near its origin.

The issue of local distress

According to Census 2011, of Uttarakhand’s 16,793 villages, 1,053 have no inhabitants, while another 405 have a population of less than 10 people. This situation must have been aggravated recently since large-scale infrastructural projects were brought into the hill State. Internal and external migration have led to depopulation and land abandonment in rural areas despite the State government’s initiatives in incentivising agriculture. Road widening, that promotes increased motorised tourism, will encourage entrepreneurs from the plains to set up hotels and business centres, often forcing the local people to opt for employment in the tourism industry rather than sticking to farming.

Environmental factors such as the depletion of water resources and other emerging hazards may have resulted in people leaving the agriculture sectors. With low returns from the land, farmers sell their lands to private entrepreneurs from the plains.

The State government is countering this trend by framing laws against selling land to outsiders, but this is a step that will not mitigate the local distress caused by human-induced environmental degradation. The State government claims that Uttarakhand’s GSDP has increased 1.3 times in 20 months and that the unemployment rate has decreased by 4.4% in one year. By its admission, people in the State have obtained more employment in tourism.

Making feel-good speeches on climate-change resilience in COP meetings while implementing disaster-prone infrastructure in the country’s most fragile area proves a double standard. The Himalayas face multifaceted environmental challenges that require well-thought-out sustainable pathways. The Union and State governments must scale down these ongoing massive construction programmes, which include dams, and formulate sound ecological solutions for the mess they have already created.

C.P. Rajendran is an Adjunct Professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru, and the Director of the Consortium for Sustainable Development, Connecticut, U.S.