Cloudburst fallout: Tourist numbers dip in Nainital, Mussoorie

NAINITAL/ MUSSOORIE: Due to torrential rains over the past few days, both Nainital and Mussoorie have seen a sharp dip in tourists who were otherwise thronging the two popular hill stations. In particular, Nainital has seen tourist numbers dwindling considerably. Locals say that the hill station received an estimated 300mm of rainfall in the last three days which may be discouraging tourists to come.Landslides near Haldwani and Almora as well as destruction due to the cloudburst in Pithoragarh district may also have put off travellers. “The tourist numbers have gone down ever since the cloudburst last week. I hope things get better soon as it is affecting our business,” said Pankaj Shah, a local hotel owner. Deepak Rawat, district magistrate of Nainital told TOI that “all precautions were being taken to make the situation normal as soon as possible.”
In view of the precarious state of the roads following a spate of landslides, the clamour has also begun to put in place provisions to ensure that such incidents are minimized. The Hill Side Safety Committee formed after the first recorded landslide in the city in 1867 blamed it on the absence of a proper drainage system in Nainital. Accordingly, a network of 62 drains spanning 79 km were laid in the town in 1890. However, these drains are not cleaned or maintained properly rendering the town vulnerable.
Charu Chandra Pant, a geologist said that it was imperative to clean drains properly. “Other steps like reconstruction of some drains also need to be done so as to reduce the speed of flow of water,” Pant added.
In Mussoorie, too, several hotel bookings especially over the weekend were cancelled by anxious tourists who were worried that rain will play spoilsport. In fact, even tourists who had arrived in the hill station started panicking due to the rain alert.
Sandeep Sahney, president Uttarakhand Hotel Association and member of the Tourism Development Board, Uttarakhand, in a press conference organized in Mussoorie on Monday, blamed the national media for “creating panic.” “Images and videos of the 2013 tragedy were being shown. These had an adverse affect on tourism. Nainital saw 50-60 per cent cancellations and Mussoorie saw about 20-30 per cent cancellations. What is worse is that the after-effects of this negative publicity will affect the state till September and October. This has reversed all the hard work that the state government had done to get tourism back on tracks in Uttrakhand,” he said. He added that he will soon write to the Press Council about the same.