Criminal negligence or Crying Shame ?

I have recently been on a trip to Dharamsala - known for being the seat of Tibetian government-in-exile. It is a small, beautiful hill town - where one can see the snow-covered peaks of the Dhauladhar range in the backyard. But, it suffers from a deadly disease - the one which plagues almost all our "hill-stations" - a criminal negligence towards the environment.

The biggest problem that all hill-towns suffer from is the lack of waste management. The waste of the entire city, including that of the eating-joints that constitute every second shop, is just dumped down the hill side. You are leisurely strolling on the road, admiring the beautiful sights of the distant hills, covered with a dense growth of Deodars, and then you happen to glance down the side of the mountain, and you are greeted by the ugly sight of chips and biscuit wrappers and discarded plastic bottles. We are very conscious about where we throw the empty wrappers and bottles - we carry them with us until we find a proper dustbin. But, I think, to what end ? Someome, who is in charge of cleaning that bin, will take and throw them down the hill. One day, we bought an ice-cream, and looked around for a dustbin to throw the wrapper. Seeing our dilemma on finding none, the shopkeeper took it from us and said he will dispose it off. And even before we turned about, he threw it in the small drain right in front of the shop!

Still worse is the treatment meted out to the rivers in the country where rivers are worshipped as "mother goddesses". Just before they reach the city, the rivers are so clean and pure, and from within the city, the entire drainage is channelled through the streams into the river. The amount of waste thrown in beautiful Beas, which flows right through Manali, is a crying shame. Dharamsala boasts of a stunning waterfall; to reach it one has to trek up a rocky pathway for at least 1.5 km. After your effort, you expect to be rewarded by a wonderful sight. But alongwith it, you get an eye-sore - two cold-drinks-and-snacks shops right at the foot of the fall. Even as we watched, one of the shopkeepers started washing a tubfull of dirty utensils in the pool of (which was clean an pure so far) water of the fall.

And the ongoing deforestation and construction - it is not just robbing these citites of their natural beauty, it is destroying the environmental balance. Everywhere you go, you find trees are being uprooted and the sides of the mountain are being cut to erect more and more hotels and apartment complexes. Where does that leave the beauty of the place ?

We all love to go to the hills to enjoy the weather and the view. Why cant we keep them clean and beautiful ??