By Miyan Mohammad Arif

Kashmir markets itself as paradise, and some 2.35 crore tourists believed the pitch in 2024. 

That number, the highest the Tourism Department has recorded in recent memory, should be a triumph. 

Instead it exposes a government that built a marketing campaign without building the infrastructure to back it.

I drove from Jammu to Srinagar recently and watched the evidence roll past my window. 

Convoys of private vehicles, plates from Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, stretched for miles. The economic signal was unmistakable, so was the strain. 

Dal Lake sits packed with shikaras during peak season. Pahalgam’s meadows fill past any reasonable limit. The roads to Gulmarg and Sonamarg grind into daily gridlock. Hotels run full, parking lots overflow onto shoulders and footpaths. 

This is what happens when a destination absorbs more visitors than its roads, water systems and waste infrastructure can sustain, and Kashmir crossed that threshold without anyone in authority saying so out loud.

The wreckage is visible on the ground itself. 

Plastic bottles collect along the edges of Dal Lake. Food wrappers and disposable........

© Kashmir Observer