Visitors freely throw trash in open meadows of Sonamarg

Ganderbal, Aug 22: At a time when tourists are finding the experience at Sonamarg quite soothing, there is the majority of irresponsible visitors who are throwing trash in the meadows and roads leaving no stone unturned to deface the beautiful face of this beautiful place.
The hopes of any responsible visitor get crashed after visiting Sonamarg. The proliferation of hutments and hotels clearly signifies that Sonamarg has been turned into a money-making centre. The pony-wallas have been roaming around without any purpose, trash being thrown by everyone on the road and in the meadows leading to further pollution.
“It was a disappointing experience for me and I do lament for visiting Sonamarg. Despite a ban on polythene and single-use plastic, these products continue to be sold and used extensively at this place. Visitors throw waste in the open. Nobody bothers to empty filled garbage bins. A pile of garbage can be found everywhere in the meadows,” one of the local visitors Showkat Ahmed said.
He said besides waste being thrown in the open there is horse manure everywhere. “In the absence of a pony track, the horse dung is everywhere especially the road leading to the Thajwas Glacier.”
In the absence of a proper mechanism plastic bottles and polythene end up in limpid water bodies and forest areas.
Another visitor Bilal Ahmed questioned the authorities asking why no serious measures are being taken to add to the beauty of Sonamarg. He alleged that the work on some hutments which had come up illegally in the past has been going on. “It’s an irony that this natural wealth has been tampered with” he added.
An official from Sonamarg Development Authority said that visitors must act as responsible fellows. “We have installed the dust bins and yet some visitors pollute the environment. We don’t want to be strict with tourists,” he said adding that a pony track will come up at the tourist destination. [KNT]