Winter tourism opposed by priests, wildlife experts, tourism officials

CHANDIGARH: The state government's plan to promote Kedarnath for winter tourism has fallen in soup after the priest community put their foot down protesting against holding any celebration when the portals of Kedarnath temple is closed. So now the plans have been changed and, the celebration program has now been converted into demonstration of disaster preparedness and of reconstruction work going on at Kedarnath.The tourism officials and wildlife experts too have expressed reservation against continuing tourism in the valley in the winter months.
C. Ravi Shankar, managing director of Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam said, "The cultural program has been removed from the Kedar festival which is to start from Feb 25 till 29 in wake of priests of the Kedarnath temple committee expressed reservation."
According to sources, the priest community of Kedarnath was of the view as per beliefs in Hindu religion, holding any event and celebration in Kedarnath or other three dhams which encourages human interference during the six months of winter can incite wrath of gods who rests at that time. The historians too favored going by the age old beliefs and traditions.
Raghav Langer, district magistrate of Rudrapryag however told TOI that "We have termed the event as disaster preparedness and awareness week, where
Nehru Institute of Mountaineering and State Disaster Response Force will demonstrate the technique of high altitude rescue work. Besides that the visitors will get to the reconstruction work continuing at the valley. Skiing is not much possible, but trekking can be done by experts in deep snow."
Satyakumar, scientist with Wildlife Institute of India said, "The winter months are critical period for wildlife as they are stressed for mating and weak for lack of food during this time..Male keep fighting with each other for mating so they are highly stressed. There is severity of food in wild this time with thick layers of snow covering every thing. The noise produced by flights cause further cause acute disturbances to them."
A tourism official further added. "The government should rather pay attention to other areas such as Auli , Munsiyari etc which are accessible and good for skiing. We should follow model of European countries where the destinations for summer and winter tourism are different. The places where skiing or other winter sports are undertaken in winter are left to recover during the summer, and vice versa. So we need not exploit all our destinations across the year," he said, while adding that the state government should rather promote rural tourism and our interesting customs, fair and festivals which can stem migration and bring development in these villages.