Today the hills of Darjeeling along with its districts are in a
poor state. The sad part of the hills is its complete concretisation.
The very site of the concrete buildings mushrooming everywhere in a
haphazard manner makes us anxious. Sadly, the story is the same in every
hill station in India.
Today, our hills suffer from over development, under
planning and concrete box-architecture which in turn has ruined the
landscape. The British and Scottish cottages are a far-fetched story.
Its also high time that we put a ban on these high rises, control the
influx of tourists and restrict the rampant buying of land in the
hills by the outsiders. It’s vital that the locals be made more
responsible in taking decisions.
Ill-planned hydro projects, encroachments of the
river beds and blasting of mountains to build roads are making our hills
more vulnerable and susceptible to disaster. The need of the hour is a
regular check on the upcoming projects and regulating the construction
of houses. The topography as well as the material used in building the
houses should also be factored in. The entire construction should blend
in with the landscape.
The continuous deforestation in the name of
development and unregulated urbanization in the name of growth have
triggered a lot of problems.Every monsoon houses get washed away.
India’s northern state Uttarakhand is one of the alarming examples. Of
course, we have taken nature for granted. Floods which caused massive
destruction to life and property in Uttarakhand... was eventually a man
made disaster. Isn’t this enough? Aren’t we going to learn from this
gruesome incident? Its high time that we buck up.
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