This year one big tragedy is enough to give this hill state the tag of tragedy king, as famous environmentalist Anil Joshi said. The flash floods and massive landslides in mid-June at Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamnotri including Sikh shrine Hemkund Sahib brought massive looses that we have gone 25 years back.
The worst sufferer was the state tourism department as tourists inflow declined to a record rate of 75 per cent. The pilgrim tourism came to a standstill, and adventure tourism like river rafting at Rishikesh, trekking at nature paths also suffered setback. Due to fear factor as created by electronic media discouraged tourists to visit this place and even safe places like Mussorrie, Nainital, Rishikesh , Ranikhet and Haridwar received abysmal fall of tourists even in peak season.
The visit of Prince Charles and Sachin Tendulkar to this state after disaster could not create magic as was expected from officials of tourism department. The recent ongoing Mussorrie Winterline Carnival is the last hope to rejuvenate tourism sector as the New Year is knocking at the door to make new history.
The poachers were active in all the months’ mainly in Rajaji National Park and Corbett National Park killing and then selling parts of precious animals. The man-animal conflicts were on rise not in interior areas alone, but in busy city like Dehradun and Nainital also and interestingly striking at odd hours too. The leopards, bears, elephants etc. attacked, injured and killed many innocents’ human-beings.
The disgruntled MLAs of certain group grabbed the media attention accusing state government of ignoring their constituencies. The alleged firing by Congress MLA Kunwar Singh Champion in the dinner party at cabinet minister Harak Singh Rawat’s residence became a subject of controversy when Vidhan Sabha speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal spoke to the media about this incident while other ruling MLAs remained tight-lipped about the incident.