Borra Caves not suitable for mass tourism: Experts

VISAKHAPATNAM: The tourism department’s plan to increase tourist footfall in geologically sensitive areas like the

Borra Caves

in

Ananthagiri

mandal near Araku has not gone down well with environment activists and experts. According to them, rare geological formations like the Borra Caves should not be destroyed with high tourism footfall.

Tourism department sources said amusement parks and lighting systems are being developed in and around the Borra Caves to draw more tourists. The lights have already been placed and there are plans to set up amusement parks five kilometres away from Borra Caves near Katiki waterfalls.

According to Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (

APTDC

) staff, there’s a turnout of around 1,000 tourists on any given day and the number can touch 10,000 during the peak season and on holidays. The current ticket price for adults is Rs 60 and Rs 45 for children.

Heritage and environment activist

Sohan Hatangadi

said, “While the tourism department and APTDC are interested in developing parks or illuminating the cave, they have not made arrangements for restricting graffiti on the geological formations inside the cave or keeping the visitors from touching these. The naturally-formed fragile limestone content of the cave, the stalactite and stalagmite formations are affected as over enthusiastic visitors touch the formations or clamber for selfies. The excessive sound, light and footfall are detrimental to the formations dating back to millions of years.”

Geology professor at Andhra University, M Jagannadha Rao said, “Already these caves are susceptible for collapse in limestone terrain and on top of that, heavy flow of visitors, with people scribbling, touching the geological structure, constant glare of lights, photographs can definitely speed up the collapsing process.”

Meanwhile, the APTDC staff working at the Borra Caves cite their own problems. They point out that they are working on a contract basis and despite repeated requests, permanent recruitment has not been made. “Some of us are working for the last 10-15 years but we don’t get promotions, increment or permanent status. Rather, the government is planning to run many of the tourism projects on a public-private partnership mode despite generation of a good amount of revenue from many of the tourism sites. Recently, around 50 staff here had staged a protest against the PPP mode,” said an APTDC staff working at the Borra Caves.

“We have a shortage of manpower. It’s not possible to always check the thousands of tourists from littering or soiling the cave walls with graffiti. Still we are urging visitors not to litter plastic or throw garbage into the

Gosthani River

flowing below and we are trying to ensure that garbage on either side of the road leading to the cave is cleared daily and not allowed to accumulate,” said another staff working at the ticket counter.

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