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A Path for a Battered and Broken Himachal Pradesh
Oct. 23, 2025

Context

  • The recent observations of the Supreme Court of India regarding the ecological state of Himachal Pradesh have rekindled national attention on the urgent need for sustainable development in the fragile Himalayan region.
  • During the hearing of M/s Pristine Hotels and Resorts Pvt. Ltd. vs State of Himachal Pradesh a two-judge bench expressed grave concern over the environmental degradation of the state.
  • Their remarks that revenue cannot be earned at the cost of environment and ecology encapsulate a fundamental tension in India’s developmental trajectory: the clash between economic growth and ecological preservation.
  • The Court’s decision to register a Suo motu writ petition in the public interest symbolises a critical intervention aimed at restoring environmental governance and accountability in Himachal Pradesh.

The Paradox of Policy and Practice

  • On paper, Himachal Pradesh boasts one of the most progressive environmental policy frameworks in India.
  • The state has banned plastic, introduced payment for ecosystem services, ensured environmental flows in rivers, and adopted policies on hydropower, tourism, and sustainable development.
  • Yet, the visible outcomes on the ground tell a different story.
  • The gap between law and implementation reveals a deep structural malaise, a bureaucratic culture of compliance limited to box-ticking, where policy exists for optics rather than impact.
  • This disconnect undermines the very spirit of sustainable development.

Hydropower and the Fragmentation of Ecosystems

  • Himachal Pradesh, home to the Beas, Sutlej, Ravi, Yamuna, and Chenab rivers, has aggressively pursued hydropower projects under the banner of renewable energy.
  • However, the cumulative ecological consequences of such projects, sediment disruption, altered river flows, fragmentation of aquatic habitats, and socio-economic dislocation, have rarely been assessed with scientific thoroughness.
  • The rhetorical question does river mean only its water? powerfully underscores the need to view rivers as living ecosystems rather than mechanical conduits for energy production.
  • Even so-called run-of-the-river projects, often marketed as environmentally benign, contribute to ecological fragmentation and biodiversity loss.

The Highway Fiasco: Infrastructure and Fragility

  • Perhaps the most glaring example of unsustainable development in the state is the Bilaspur–Manali–Leh National Highway project.
  • This project is a fiasco, emblematic of the reckless disregard for geological and seismic vulnerabilities in mountain road construction.
  • Despite official guidelines from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in 2018 limiting hill road widths to 5.5 meters, road expansion in Himachal has often ignored these restrictions.
  • The project’s shortcomings reveal a chain of negligence: environmental impact assessments diluted or bypassed, slope management ignored, debris dumped into rivers, and explosives used for tunnelling without adequate safeguards.
  • The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) appears to have failed in consulting critical scientific institutions such as the Geological Survey of India (GSI) or the Central Road Research Institute.

Science, Data, and Accountability

  • The failure of environmental governance in Himachal Pradesh is not merely administrative but epistemological, rooted in a disregard for science-based policymaking.
  • Institutions like the Aryabhatta Geo-Informatics & Space Application Centre (AGiSAC), created to serve as a data repository for informed decision-making, remain underutilised.
  • The absence of credible, granular environmental data undermines evidence-based governance, resulting in ad hoc, reactive responses to natural disasters rather than proactive risk mitigation.
  • Moreover, the lack of comprehensive Hazard, Vulnerability, Risk and Capabilities Assessments (HVRCA) means that infrastructure and settlement expansion proceed without a realistic understanding of the region’s climatic and geological risks.
  • This neglect has devastating human consequences.
  • The repeated floods and landslides of 2023 and 2025, once considered once-in-a-century events, are now grimly routine, exacerbated by deforestation, unregulated construction, and flawed hydrological management.

Judicial Responsibility and the Way Forward

  • The Supreme Court’s intervention is therefore not merely a legal act but a moral and ecological necessity.
  • By taking Suo motu cognizance of the issue, the judiciary signals that environmental governance cannot be left to political expediency or bureaucratic inertia.
  • The Court’s observations align with the constitutional mandate of Article 21, the right to life, which encompasses the right to a healthy environment.
  • However, judicial pronouncements must now be accompanied by institutional accountability.
  • The Court’s directive should focus on measurable outcomes: mandatory cumulative impact assessments, stringent monitoring of highway and hydropower projects, transparent public data on environmental indicators, and genuine community participation in planning processes.

Conclusion

  • The crisis in Himachal Pradesh is emblematic of a deeper national dilemma: the inability to reconcile development with ecological sustainability.
  • The Supreme Court’s intervention offers a moment of reckoning, a chance to replace tokenism with tangible reform.
  • If implemented earnestly, this could indeed mark the beginning of a new era of development that values the Himalayas not as a resource frontier, but as a living, breathing ecosystem central to India’s ecological and cultural identity.

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