In pristine Gurez, J&K admn imposes ban on tents after littering by visitors
The Jammu and Kashmir Government imposed a ban on installation of temporary tents by tourists and visitors for night stay in Gurez, one of the major emerging tourist destinations in North Kashmir on Line of Control(LoC).
Owing to littering around pristine water bodies and green landscape, the Jammu and Kashmir Government imposed a ban on installation of temporary tents by tourists and visitors for night stay in Gurez, one of the major emerging tourist destinations in North Kashmir on Line of Control(LoC).
The ban comes just 45 days after the sub divisional magistrate in Gurez had allowed installation of temporary tents by tourists and visitors for night stay subject to the condition that they will not litter the place and keep the site neat and clean.
However, owing to the accumulation of trash around the virgin valley nestled amid the snow-covered Himalayas after a rush of visitors, the administration has taken back the decision.
“It has however been observed that the tourists/visitors installing tents overnight leave the trash and garbage at the camping site which has impacted the environment of this sub-division and can lead to outbreak of disease,” said Mukhtar Ahmad Ahanger, Sub Divisional Magistrate, Gurez, in an order issued on Saturday.
The order said that due to the escalating threat to the delicate ecosystem and environment, it has become imperative to implement immediate measures to protect these vulnerable areas.
“As such it is hereby ordered there shall be complete ban on installation of temporary tents by tourists/visitors for personal use with effect from Monday i.e 15-07-2024,” he said.
Gurez, which was opened for tourism after 2020, is a remote Himalayan valley in the northern Bandipora district, 123 kilometers from Srinagar. Situated at an elevation of around 2,400 meters above sea level, the valley is nestled amid the snow-capped mountains, with magnificent Kail and Pine forests while the Kishanganga River gushes through it. Adventurers are opting for the valley owing to its amazing trekking routes, rafting on the Kishenganga river and the lovely campsites where the tents can be pitched near the river.
Amid a record increase in tourist numbers in Kashmir for the past two years, the virgin valley of Gurez, which once witnessed cross-LoC shelling during militancy, is also becoming another major tourism destination in the Himalayan region after saturation in the famous resorts of Gulmarg, Pahalgam and Sonmarg.
The order said that the tents rented out by locals to the tourists shall continue, subject to some conditions. “They will keep the site neat and clean and pay a sanitation fee to the Rural Sanitation Department for collection of waste,” it said.
The District administration in collaboration with Policy Advocacy Research Centre (PARC) had earlier this year conducted a survey revealing over 300% increase in tourist arrivals in Gurez in the past two years, especially in 2023 when nearly 46,000 tourists visited the place from 12, 472 in 2022.
Apart from local visitors, the tourists from Delhi, Lucknow, Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram, Mumbai and Chennai visited the remote parts of Gurez.
Owing to the improvement in the situation, the Himalayan Kashmir valley has welcomed tourists in record numbers since 2022. Overall the two years have witnessed tourist arrivals of 53.8 lakhs – 27.1 lakh in 2023 and 26.7 lakh in 2022. Such numbers were never recorded in the valley since the start of militancy in the early 1990s. This year, the valley has received a record number of 15.65 lakh (1.56 million) tourists in the first half of the year 2024, registering an increase of 20 percent over last year’s 13 lakhs in the same period.