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Tourism
& Its Impact In Ladakh
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Mask
Dancers of Ladakh
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Ladakh has seen unprecedented changes
in the last few decades. Of the many agents of change, tourism seems
to be one of the strongest. It is also one of the most debated and
controversial issues. There are two important perspectives in the
matter of tourism's impact in Ladakh. They are : (a) the impact
of tourism as an in dustry ; and (b) the influence of tourists on
the Ladakhi people.
The story of tourism in Ladakh is one
of mismanagement and chaos. Without any prior planning or basic
infrastructure, 20,000 demanding Western tourists are unleashed
every year upon Leh, a small town that can support only a few thousand
self-sufficient farmers and some tradesmen. The pressure is not
only from tourists but also from an influx of thousand of tourism-related
workers who come from all parts of India. Due to short and non-involved
nature of their stay, none of them care about the fate of the place
after they have used it and left. The magnitude of the problem now
a days often makes one feel ashamed to receive foreign friends in
Leh. First, hordes of screaming hotel touts waving cards in their
faces greet them at airport on arrival. Then come the overcrowded
roads of Skalzangling with trucks spewing thick poisonous smoke,
streets with heaps of garbage, streams with bluish-grey polluted
water, street-corners used as public toilets, and lastly the persistent
street vendors who are a nuisance.
During the past twenty years, there has been very little planning
and investment in sanitation, public health service, electricity,
safe drinking water, and training of local people in servicing tourism
sector. But the State Tourism Department has spent millions of rupees
on publicity abroad to attract more tourists! The scarce financial
resource is used to promote tourism that is a far from sustainable.
It seems to be a "use-and-discard" policy; open up an
exotic region and, when it is spoiled, open up a new one. The mistakes
that have been and are being made in respect of Leh are now being
repeated in Nubra, Da-Hanu, Tso Moriri and Pangong areas. The people
of these areas are neither educated about the nature, needs and
tastes of tourists nor about tourism related problems. There are
no plans and programmes to make tourists realise that they have
come to experience the things that make Ladakh special and different
from other places. Considerable energy and resources are spent on
so-called 'improvements' that actually spoil the ambience of a place.
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