PAHALGAM: The garbage dump at lower Chandanwari or other padaws/stations from last one decade has become a painful sight for the last many years. If the Shri Amarnath Ji Shrine Board SASB could have huge gates erected in Pahalgam and Chandanwari.They however don't get this simple machinery installed and instead dump garbage and untreated sewage in the Lidder or on its banks, subjecting the lives of locals to risk of water borne disease including Hepatitis A, E. Secondly lakhs of polythene bags and other plastic garbage is dumped at all stations during the yatra every year, including at Chandanwari, Sheshnag, Panjtarni, Holy cave and Baltal ringing danger bells across the glacier region but the government or sasb has paid no heed to the problem.
Thirdly, the SASB to erect temporary toilets along the yatra trek route from Pahalgam upwards but these toilets neither have septic tanks nor soak pits and pose great threat of contamination to Lidder and Sind rivers with the sewage from these toilets being discharged in these rivers. Also the army units posted at yatra camps or ROP sites have some 200-300 jawans posted there with only 3-4 toilets which causes a majority of them to defecate in the open, further increasing the adverse ecological pressure on these water bodies.
Fourth, why doesn't the SASB buy modern machinery for garbage treatment despite an income of crores of rupees every year, and instaed get the garbage dumped in wild pits which are eventually dug up by wild bears etc causing the waste to get washed into rivers and streams like lidder, sind and sheshnag nallah subsequently. Sadly all government departments fear the SASB in J&K and they thus have a free hand in tampering with the environment, with even noted environmentalists like Ms Sunita Narayan of CSE, giving them a free pass she is also member SASB.