Haridwar:
The annual Kanwar Yatra is over, and the Land of Gods now has mountains of trash to take care of.
Almost 5 crore pilgrims visited Haridwar, in ‘Devbhoomi’ Uttarakhand, to gather water from the Ganga this Sawan. As they made their means again after Shivratri, they left behind heaps of trash.
Visuals confirmed discarded clothes, plastic gadgets, and Kanwar constructions scattered on the ghats.
The ghat wasn’t any much less soiled at Har ki Pauri, probably the most iconic of the over hundred ghats in Haridwar.
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Within the altering rooms, discarded water bottles full of urine had been left behind. Movies confirmed cleaners with out gloves or masks eradicating these bottles with only a shovel.
The incident has sparked outrage among the many locals. Describing it as “unlucky”, considered one of them identified the irony that devotees stroll lengthy stretches to achieve the Ganga after which depart it in such a state.
No less than 7,000 tonnes of rubbish has been moved to the dumping grounds in Haridwar, in accordance with authorities, leading to what resembles mountains of rubbish.
“Following Shivratri yesterday, all our groups labored by means of the evening to wash the ghats, in addition to all parking areas and roads,” mentioned Municipal Commissioner Nandan Kumar.
Not simply Haridwar and Rishikesh, hundreds of devotees trekked to larger reaches to gather water from the Ganga. Throughout Sawan, an estimated 57,000 pilgrims visited Gangotri, which marks the supply of the river thought-about sacred, in Uttarkashi.
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On their means again, the pilgrims left behind tons of trash, together with discarded garments, plastics, and different gadgets, which poses a significant risk to the ecologically delicate space, the flora, and fauna.
This regardless of Gangotri being a chosen plastic-free zone. The realm is a part of the extremely delicate Himalayan ecosystem, and the plastic accumulation signifies a blatant violation of the environmental guidelines.
It not solely poses a significant risk to the forest assets, however many really feel it additionally threatens the sanctity of the pilgrimage web site.
The forest division undertook a particular cleanliness drive in Gangotri after the conclusion of the Yatra. In the course of the cleanup drive, as many as 57 sacks of waste had been collected for disposal.
(Inputs by Rahul Chauhan)
