Every summer and during major religious events like the Char Dham Yatra and Kanwad Yatra, Uttarakhand’s roads become heavily crowded. Places such as Dehradun, Haridwar, Haldwani, Ramnagar, Mussoorie, Nainital and Kainchi see a huge increase in vehicles and the resultant traffic jams. What should ideally be a peaceful trip often turns into a long wait in traffic jams and even accidents, especially on the narrow hill roads as well as the roads in Dehradun, Haridwar and the roads leading to these cities.
Just last weekend, visitors to Mussoorie found themselves moving at barely a kilometre per hour. The usual one-hour drive from Dehradun took more than three hours. Sadly, a tourist lost his life while stuck in this jam, showing how serious the problem has become. In Nainital, up to 50,000 vehicles arrive on busy weekends, but there is parking for only about 3,000. There too, a man recently died after an ambulance was stuck in traffic for over five hours.
The Char Dham Yatra alone has witnessed 16 lakhs of pilgrims already this season. The Kanwad Yatra brings about 3 crore devotees to Haridwar every monsoon. Even though there are limits and conditions like mandatory registration process in force, like 15,000 people per day at Badrinath and 12,000 at Kedarnath, these are often ignored. Agencies like IIM Rohtak, CRRI, and CBRI are studying how many people and vehicles these places can handle. The National Green Tribunal has also raised concerns in this regard, stressing on clear rules about how many visitors and vehicles are allowed.
It is clear that we need to act quickly. Proper studies should be done urgently to find out how many vehicles and people the hill stations and shrines can handle without causing problems. At the same time, work to improve roads, like widening highways to Nainital and Ramnagar, building roads to bypass city traffic in places like Dehradun, and creating parking areas outside the main towns and cities, should be ensured at the earliest possible. Projects like the Char Dham all-weather road and the Mussoorie-Dehradun ropeway are also urgently required to be completed early to ease traffic.
In order to ease traffic and the parking woes, public transport needs to be improved significantly. More government-run shuttle buses should be started, and systems like FasTag, pre-paid permits, and limits on private vehicles should be used. The recent measure of limiting helicopter trips to Kedarnath to 9 per hour shows that setting clear limits can work. Online registration, daily visitor limits, and real-time monitoring should be used for road travel as well.
The people should be made aware about travelling during the off-season, carpooling, and protecting the environment, besides promoting off beat tourist destinations. The local authorities should be asked to offer lower fees on weekdays and create areas where private vehicles are not allowed, particularly during weekends. Unless we realign our development strategies to the carrying capacity of our fragile Himalayan terrain, Uttarakhand’s roads will continue to face chronic congestion, ecological degradation, and risks to human life.
