NEW DELHI – It took less than a minute for flash floods to wash away an entire section of a village in the Indian Himalayan state of Uttarakhand on Aug 5, as people tried in vain to flee.
Among the establishments swept away by the deluge in Dharali were shops and hotels that had sprung up in the last decade to cater to the swarms of tourists and Hindu pilgrims headed for destinations farther up in the hills.
But these structures built on the banks of the Bhagirathi river, one of the key headstreams of the Ganges river, should not have been there in the first place.
Dharali is situated in the Bhagirathi Eco-Sensitive Zone, a 4,157 sq km expanse established in 2012, to protect the ecology and watershed of the Ganges near its origin.
Construction activity is banned on the banks for at least 100m from the middle of the river, but it has gone on unchecked for years, which contributed to the scale of devastation from the flash floods. At least four people in Dharali died, while another 68 are still missing.
This preventable loss of human lives has again renewed the focus on overtourism in India’s hill regions and the recurring toll it exacts, especially now that adverse weather events linked to climate change, such as cloudbursts and glacial lake outburst floods, are on the rise in the Himalayas.
On Aug 14, a cloudburst in the Kishtwar district of India-administered Jammu and Kashmir caused the deaths of at least 67 people, many of them pilgrims. Heavy rain has killed hundreds this monsoon season, as landslides and flash floods wreaked havoc across the Himalayas.
Faced with these threats, several Indian states and other hilly regions have announced initiatives to spur sustainable tourism and preserve their environment.
Sikkim, a hilly state in India’s north-east, is encouraging “slow tourism”, aimed at luring travellers away from over-visited urban centres to scenic villages where they can enjoy longer breaks at local homestays.
And on Aug 6, Ladakh in north India made it mandatory for hotels with more than 20 rooms to install and operate sewage treatment plants that adhere to the Indian government’s effluent quality norms.
But experts note that much more needs to be done, given the scale of damage that overtourism has already wrought in India’s hilly areas. Measures suggested include restrictions on visitor numbers, and efforts to ensure other livelihood options for locals to reduce their reliance on tourism.
Hordes of visitors come to these hills for holidays and pilgrimages each year, especially during the peak summer months. These numbers have grown exponentially since the Covid-19 pandemic, and key hill stations such as Mussoorie in Uttarakhand and Shimla in Himachal Pradesh are creaking with overburdened infrastructure.
More than four million pilgrims flocked to Uttarakhand during the Char Dham Yatra in 2025 between April and July, a key Hindu pilgrimage. Roads are currently being widened to accommodate more pilgrims, raising concerns about the impact this may have on the fragile hill environment of the state.
The Uttarakhand government said in July that it had commissioned “carrying capacity” studies for its cities and towns. “Carrying capacity” refers to the maximum number of individuals an ecosystem or specific area can support without causing significant environmental damage.
But critics say such studies, also announced in the past, have made slow progress. State governments, including Uttarakhand, are also more focused on celebrating a surge in visitors as achievements, and are planning to further increase these numbers.
Plans are even afoot for an elevated 26km elevated stretch of road to better connect Mussoorie to the plains, including Delhi.
“From the standpoint of sustainability, this approach is foolhardy and absolutely counterproductive,” said Mr Anoop Nautiyal, founder of the Dehradun-based environmental action and advocacy group Social Development For Communities Foundation.
“It’s not only unsustainable, but it is also unmanageable. And very importantly, it is highly risky and dangerous,” he told The Straits Times. “Innocent tourists come to our state in good faith, hoping to go back with good memories, but as we see at times, all we are giving is death, destruction, misery and hopelessness.”
More than 80 million tourists visited Uttarakhand in 2024, with the rise in their numbers over the years prompting rapid growth in infrastructure such as hotels and resorts, often in eco-sensitive zones such as river banks.
This encroachment is exacerbated by growth in the state’s population, currently estimated at more than 11.6 million, and the migration of locals from poorly developed hilly villages in the state to its towns and cities, further adding to pressure on land here.
A view of the town of Dharali (top) in India’s Uttarakhand state on April 11, and the destruction (bottom) after it was hit by floods and landslides in August, as seen in satellite images from Maxar Technologies.
PHOTO: AFP
Mr Nautiyal cautioned that tourism should not be exploited as a “golden goose”, and called for a frank public dialogue with all stakeholders in Uttarakhand to develop a consensus on the state’s tourism and development priorities.
“We need to think out of the box and can’t put all our eggs in one basket,” he added, urging a diversification of the state’s economy to cut the dependence on tourism.
Agriculture, for instance, contributes only around 10 per cent of the state’s gross domestic product (GDP), compared with a 16 per cent contribution to the national GDP. This leaves room to develop agriculture or horticulture, particularly organic farming, as a livelihood option, noted Mr Nautiyal.
Less-explored destinations could be also be promoted through village homestays, and carbon credits could be sought for village councils that choose to protect their forests.
Scenic Sikkim, too, has seen an explosion in the number of tourists. A state with a population of just around 632,000, it saw more than 1.6 million tourists in 2023, most of them in the summer months.
“This is unsustainable,” said Professor Sampad Kumar Swain from the Department of Tourism Studies at Pondicherry University, who called for a shift away from “mass tourism” to “quality tourism”.
He told ST that Sikkim should increase the entry fee charged by the state from each tourist, which currently stands at just 50 rupees (73 Singapore cents). Introduced in March 2025, the money is collected for a fund to develop tourism infrastructure and preserve the state’s natural beauty and cultural heritage.
“It could also set a minimum threshold tariff for hotels as another way to limit the number of tourists while also diversifying the economy to ensure jobs for locals,” added Prof Swain, who consults with the Sikkim government on matters related to sustainable tourism. Tourism contributes nearly 10 per cent of Sikkim’s GDP.
Forest land is also being cleared for other reasons.
More than 50,000ha of forest in Uttarakhand was allocated for various projects between November 2000 and March 2020, including mining, hydropower plants and defence-related work. That is more than 7ha of forest – or more than 10 football fields – being cleared on average each day.
Ms Mallika Bhanot, a volunteer with Ganga Ahvaan, a citizen’s forum dedicated to protecting the Ganges and the Himalayas, said she hopes “better sense” prevails among India’s hilly states as these “developmental policies are not coherent with what is the reality on the ground”, especially in an era of climate change that has heightened the vulnerability of this fragile region.
“We cannot allow deforestation in these areas. We cannot allow reduced green cover in these areas, we cannot allow increased or unregulated tourism in these areas,” said Ms Bhanot. “We cannot do all this because this is anti-conservation, and the Ganges basin has been yearning for conservation for a very long time now.”
Ms Bhanot, who is also a member of the Bhagirathi Eco-Sensitive Zone monitoring committee, along with other independent members had rung the alarm bells on illegal construction in the zone, including in Dharali, but these warnings were ignored by the relevant district authorities, she said.
“We need to review and rethink what kind of development we want. Do we want development that risks lives of people?” added Ms Bhanot. “It’s not even rocket science, it is simple logic.”
