Himachal Pradesh

“Urban administration and urban planning in India is undergoing a major change,” says Rajneesh, Principal Secretary, Housing and Urban development. “Himachal Pradesh, a predominantly rural state, has to make this transition given that urbanisation is a fact of life and new ULBs (Urban Local bodies) must be strengthened”. This was the rationale given by the Himachal Pradesh government to form three new municipal corporations to administer Solan, Palampur and Mandi . While Solan is a fast growing town with several educational institutions of higher studies and a bustling business community, Palampur in Kangra district is a popular tea town and home to…

This article is part of our special series Environmental Sustainability & Climate Change in Tier II cities supported by Climate Trends. Natural disaster triggered by unusual climate events is a way of life in Himachal. The latest incident is that of flash floods triggered by sudden heavy rainfall in Kinnaur with the IMD issuing yellow weather warnings of heavy rainfall in middle and lower hills of the state in the coming few days. Fortunately, no lives were lost. Earlier in June 2005, when the Pareechu lake in Tibet burst its banks, the loss of property, both private and public, was…

The 2018 drinking water crisis in Shimla, a horrifying time when the hill town did not get a drop of water for almost eight days, was a wake-up call both for citizens and urban planners on the need to conserve its water resources. Environmentalists had then stressed the need for putting in place an efficient water management system, not only for Shimla but for the entire hill region. “The 2018 water crisis was an opportunity that called for a response based on scientific inputs about the overall water scarcity problem in the Himalayan region and a way forward to avert…

“Despite best efforts to facilitate the state’s economic revival, the success rate is not beyond 50 per cent,” said Rajinder Guleria, advisor, Baddi-Brotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN) Industries Association, “There are issues of logistics, mobility, manpower and enhancing liquidity.” For a hill state mainly dependent on its farm economy, tourism and export oriented pharmaceutical clusters, Himachal Pradesh currently stares at nearly 80 per cent loss of livelihoods, both rural and urban, especially as its mainstay, the tourism industry, is under total lockdown. The Baddi-Brotiwala-Nalagarh industrial belt, Himachal’s largest industrial belt, has an annual turnover worth Rs 45,000 to 50,000 crore, and employs three…

Harshvardhan Chauhan, a-five-time MLA from Shillai, a poverty-ridden belt in the interiors of Himachal Pradesh’s Sirmaur district, has been stuck in Shimla these last few weeks due to the lockdown. “But in a way, this has been a blessing in disguise, me being here than in my constituency,” said Chauhan. “I have been able to help 250 to 260 daily-wage earners from my constituency held-up in Shimla due to the 21-day lockdown. These poor workers have run out of money, food and other daily needs. But their problem is just not of today. The crisis is much deeper for all…

The coronavirus outbreak has hit Himachal Pradesh with a triple whammy. With the state having closed its borders before the national lockdown, the tourism industry, on which lakhs of livelihoods depend, was completely shut down. While initially just three positive cases were reported, with one death, and a manageable number of foreign returnees requiring surveillance and tracing, the Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi has caused a sudden increase in the number of positive cases even as health authorities scramble to trace primary and secondary contacts of those who had visited Delhi. The third whammy is the potential catastrophic disruption of…

Of all the headlines made by the state visit of US President, Donald Trump, the one that caught my attention was a news report about five langurs being included in his security detail during his visit to Agra to deal with the monkey menace. It provided great fodder to social media and meme makers as the jokes wrote themselves. But now that the noise has died down after the return of the President, it is time we looked at the magnitude of the problem, because as the residents of these cities will tell you, it is no laughing matter. So,…

The snow-capped Dauladhar mountains paint a picturesque backdrop to the town that today aspires to be a popular hub as a global tourist destination, as the business capital of Himachal Pradesh and as a centre for promoting sporting talent in the region. For decades, Dharamshala’s only claim to fame was as the home of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and the creation of McLeodganj as the headquarters of the Tibetan government in exile, now renamed the Central Tibetan Administration. “Today, Dharamshala can become one of India’s best towns,” said I. D Bhandari, retired IPS officer and former DGP who…

“Will I be able to watch Shimla’s first snowfall before I return to Patna after my semester examination in December 2019?” Ankit Kumar, a student at Shimla APG University asked his teacher. Hailing from Bihar, Ankit said one of the reasons he chose to do his journalism course in Shimla was to see his first snowfall. “I have seen lots of lovely pictures of this beautiful hill station completely wrapped in soft white snow. It’s my life’s dream to experience this”. With the sudden drop in temperature to 6 degrees centigrade on November 29, and popular tourist spots like Noranda,…

Palampur is a picturesque Himalayan town in Kangra district, in the foothills of the majestic Dhauladhar mountains and the gateway to the popular Kullu-Manali tourist destinations. Surrounded by lush green tea gardens growing the famous Kangra tea, which was first planted in Palampur, the town is also home to CSIR’s Institute of Biosource Technology. Sadly, barring some localities and the town’s peripheral belt, the once pretty lanes of this town are today lined with garbage heaps dumped haphazardly at some spots.  “We need to find answers to fix this problem,” said former Chief Minister Shanta Kumar, who hails from Palampur.…