Four Himachal villages to rein in buildout plans near UNESCO site

Shimla, Feb 28 (IANS) For the first time, to regulate unprecedented tourism development in the countryside, four gram panchayats that fall in the biodiversity-rich Tirthan Valley, adjacent to the UNESCO site Great Himalayan National Park in Kullu district, have evolved and adopted a vision document under the Himachal Panchayati Raj Act.

The regulation will be enforced from April 1, officials told IANS on Friday.

They say now all construction activities in the Tirthan Valley that fall outside the purview of the Town and Country Planning (TCP) Act will be regulated by gram panchayats. They will approve building maps to regulate haphazard constructions.

The gram panchayats — Sarchi, Kalwari, Khadagad and Sajwaad — fall in the Banjar block.

The Panchayat Samiti has passed the combined model plan along with a vision document-cum-model plan from the gram panchayats of Sarchi.

The Tirthan Valley’s pristine rivers, the Tirthan and Sainj, are famous for the brown and rainbow trout, and these prized catches can be found in abundance.

Rajendra Chauhan, director of Sahara Sanstha, said earlier 12 panchayats of Jibhi and Tirthan had passed a resolution at the gram sabha level in 2021 and also passed a vision document that was shared with officials concerned, including the Chief Secretary.

According to the vision document, the Gram Sabha wants to take tourism development in a sustainable and culturally sensitive direction, in contrast to tourism models in other valleys.

“And this latest initiative has been taken to prevent the pollution of the sacred Tirthan River and to maintain the traditional sanctity of other Dev places in the Dev Samaj, which is witnessing unregulated increasing tourism,” Chauhan told IANS.

He said that while taking a lesson from the increasingly haphazard construction in the valleys of the state and the 2023 disaster, some gram panchayats have moved towards regulation of building construction under Sections 14 and 13(h) of the Panchayati Raj Act of 1994.

The model plan for construction work regulation was unanimously approved by the Panchayat Samiti Chairman last month. This will also comply with the orders of the Himachal Pradesh High Court dated January 13, 2023, in Kusum Bali vs. Government of Himachal Pradesh. In this, all the Panchayats were directed to prepare a model plan under the Panchayati Raj Act. The court had also taken note of the haphazard and risky construction going on in the state and had also reprimanded the departments concerned.

Locals rue that rapid and haphazard commercial construction activities are going on along the banks of the Tirthan River. The incidents of illegal diversion of water resources, dumping of solid waste on the river banks and the ongoing construction work inside the Tirthan River bed by tourism units are also worrying.

Currently, protests are taking place in the Tirthan area against a building under construction in Shairopa.

Former Sharchi pradhan Hari Singh Thakur said, “This area located in the ecozone of the Great Himalayan National Park is geographically and ecologically sensitive and irregular construction will pose unnecessary risks, which can also harm tourism in the long run.”

Padam Singh, senior chief advisor of the Shojha Tourism Development Committee, said, “This is the first case of its kind in the state when Panchayats have united and implemented a model plan to deal with haphazard construction. The people of the valley also suspect the TCP Department of weakening the powers of the Panchayat.”

To propagate exotic trout fish in the natural waters of Tirthan, the government in 2004 imposed a complete ban on allotting hydro projects in the Tirthan River.

(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in)

–IANS

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