Kashmir's Environmental Emergency

In this Open Letter to M.Y. Tarigami, Chairperson of the House Committee on Environment & Climate Change, Kashmir's leading climate activist urges urgent legislative action to stop the ongoing destruction of the valley's rivers, wetlands, and farmlands.

- Dr. Raja Muzaffar Bhat

For two decades, I have used the Right to Information Act (RTI) to track environmental damage in Jammu and Kashmir. I have filed hundreds of applications, gathered thousands of pages of documents, and shared the findings with the press and the public. The pattern is always the same: laws are clear, violations are blatant, penalties are imposed, and the destruction continues.

In Srinagar's uptown, stormwater pumps built to keep the city dry during rains now run even in the heat of summer. They are pumping untreated sewage — faecal sludge, kitchen waste, industrial runoff — straight into the Doodh Ganga stream.

This stream is not a remote watercourse. It is a primary drinking water source for over half a million people and the lifeline of Hokersar Wetland, a Ramsar site recognised for its ecological value under international law.

Connecting stormwater pumps to sewerage lines is illegal under the Water Act of 1974, the Solid Waste Management Rules of 2016, and the Wetland Rules of 2017. Yet the practice goes on.

In 2021, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) ordered the Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) to pay 241.47 crore in environmental compensation. In 2022, it imposed another 35 crore in penalties, plus 1 crore in March that year. The Municipal Council Chadoora was also fined 1 crore.

These are unprecedented fines for the state. And still, untreated sewage continues to flow into the stream and wetland.

The same disregard plays out in the mining of Karewas and riverbeds in Pulwama and Budgam.

Karewas are ancient clay plateaus that store water, feed orchards, and preserve a fragile ecosystem.