Save Peer ki Gali
Peer ki Gali, a mountain pass nestled high on the Mughal Road, was seen once among the Valley’s most pristine destinations, untouched by even a whiff of pollution. No longer. Today, the 11,500-foot-high stretch between Poshana and Heerpora is being buried under heaps of bottles, wrappers, and discarded polythene bags, as revealed by a story in this newspaper.
Locals say the problem has worsened in recent years as traffic and tourism increased. Fruit-laden trucks, tourist vehicles, and roadside vendors have turned the pass into a dumping ground. There are no dustbins, no sanitation facilities, and no system of waste collection. The Mughal emperors, who once dismounted here in reverence to the saint Shaikh Ahmad Karim, might not recognize the place today.
However, the pollution at Peer ki Gali is part of a larger tragedy unfolding across Kashmir. By official estimates, Jammu and Kashmir produces over 51,000 tonnes of plastic every year, most of it ending up in water bodies, orchards, and farmlands. Plastic doesn’t decompose; it only breaks into finer particles that contaminate everything from food to groundwater.
Globally too, the crisis has deepened. Negotiations in Geneva for a global plastic treaty recently collapsed over disagreements on whether to limit production or just manage waste. Oil-producing nations and the plastics industry resisted curbs, leaving the world adrift. The world now churns out over 500 million tonnes of new plastic each year, a figure expected to rise by 70 percent by 2040.
In the Valley, often called the paradise on earth, the rampant plastic pollution is ravaging our scenic resorts, which fetch us tourism revenue. So, this is more than an environmental issue for us and demands a serious response not just from the government but also from the people.
What Kashmir needs now is not just more rules, but resolve. Awareness campaigns must move beyond token slogans. Alternatives to plastic - cloth bags, biodegradable packaging - must be subsidized and made easily available. And most important of all, violators must face real penalties, not empty warnings.
