The frosty path of disruption

Bhanu P Lohumi

Rain and snow in Himachal Pradesh during the winter are a normal occurrence but this year, heavy snowfall paralysed life and left a trail of destruction. A good spell of snow is considered a boon for agriculture and horticulture and tourism but it brings miseries too. Blocked roads, disrupted water and power supply, and long traffic jams due to heavy snowfall hit the tourism industry hard and make the lives of people miserable.

On January 7 and 8, over 1,000 roads in the state were blocked following heavy snowfall and several areas, including key tourist destinations of Shimla, Kullu, Manali and tribal districts, were cut off and the tourism industry was hit badly. The upper areas of Shimla, Kullu, Kangra, Chamba, Sirmaur, Kinnaur and Lahaul and Spiti districts received heavy snowfall and the topography limitations delayed clearing of roads, giving a tough time to people living in remote and interior areas.

The state capital Shimla remained without newspapers and essential daily use commodities such as milk, bread and vegetables after heavy snowfall. Hundreds of vehicles, including of tourists, were stranded at various places, warranting massive rescue operations; upper Shimla was cut off by road for days together. The losses to the Public Works Department (PWD) due to rain and snowfall during the winter till January 15 this year is estimated to be over Rs 120 crore but the exact amount of loss will be known after the restoration work is completed.

Snow manual

The administration follows the snow manual, which is in vogue for decades, for preparedness for heavy snowfall but implementing the statutory guidelines in letter and in spirit in a difficult situation is neither feasible nor possible.

The snow manual provides for steps to be taken before and after a snowfall to ensure that arrangements are in place to clear blocked roads immediately, especially emergency roads to hospitals and cremation grounds on priority, heavy machinery is deployed at all vulnerable places for clearing snow and fallen trees, water and power supply and other emergency services are maintained and the forecast to inform local people and tourists is regularly updated.

“We adhere to the guidelines and have already organised three meetings of the snow manual committee. Duties have been assigned to all line departments and a control room has also been set up. A road-wise time schedule has been given for opening roads post-snowfall. Complaints of power supply disruption are dealt with on priority and laxity on the part of any official is not tolerated,” says Amit Kashyap, Deputy Commissioner, Shimla.

The roads in the state capital were cleared on priority after disruptions caused by snowfall recently. However, it took time to open roads in the upper Shimla region and they adopted a proactive approach by identifying vulnerable points and deployed heavy machinery there to clear roads, he says. The district administration worked day and night to restore normalcy, he adds.

3 snow cutters to be procured

“However, equipment remains an issue and we are procuring three snow cutters for the district. Better weather forecast can help us prepare in advance. Electricity is definitely a problem as power lines pass through forest areas and supply is snapped when uprooted trees fall on them. Hence, it is advisable to have power cables underground,” says Kashyap.

Endangered trees felled

Endangered trees are felled as a safety measure to ensure that in the event of heavy snowfall, these do not fall down and disrupt water and power supply and block roads. However, every year, a large number of trees get uprooted due to snowfall, disrupting civic services, and causing accidents.

Similarly, the Shimla Municipal Corporation and the Shimla Jal Prabandhan Nigam have plans in place to ensure that public services are not affected and restoration works are carried out immediately and round the clock. Power supply disruption has a cascading effect on water supply, as pumping of water is hampered and tanks do not fill adequately to ensure enough pressure for regular supply.

The carrying capacity of major hill stations in imachal has reached the saturation point. Ruthless constructions, both legal and illegal, paucity of parking spaces and a large number of hotels and home-stay units coming along narrow roads have become the bane of the tourism industry. There is no long-term plan in place to cope with these perennial problems.

Bad New Year eve

Earlier also, on the New Year eve in 1990, Shimla witnessed very heavy snowfall. Not only roads were blocked and tourists were stranded and harassed, but also the town remained without water and power supply for 10 days. Thousands of tourists were stranded in the town for days and they ran out of money, power transmission lines and poles were damaged and in spite of round-the-clock restoration works normalcy could not be restored for several days.

Snow season changing

The snow season has shifted from November to February to mid-December to mid-March. Excessive rain and snowfall within a very short period and more rainy days but less pouring during the monsoons have become a regular feature, says Manmohan Singh, Director, local MeT Station.

However, the 2019-20 season is an aberration as December 2019 was the coldest month in the last 16 years and Shimla recorded the lowest minimum temperature of minus 3.7°C in the last 11 years.

Erratic weather conditions are a threat to the fragile ecology of hills, as Himachal falls in the seismic zone and the avalanche threat looms large over tribal areas and higher hills following heavy snowfall.

The state received 204 per cent excess rainfall in the first fortnight of this month, which is abnormal compared to 43 per cent excess winter rainfall in 2019 and 71 per cent deficit rainfall in 2018.

White manure for apple

Snowfall is beneficial for apple, as it is considered white manure that provides sufficient chilling hours and moisture for a good crop. In the last one decade, the apple crop has suffered the most due to uncertain weather conditions, as sufficient cooling hours (1,200 to 1,600 hours below 7°C) were not available due to the rise in temperatures. Apple production reduced to 1.45 crore standard boxes of 20 kg each in 2018 from 2.31 crore boxes in 2017.

The area under apple cultivation increased about three and a half times from 26,000 hectares in 1970 to 88,560 hectares in 2005-06 but productivity declined from 9 tonnes per hectare to 6 tonnes per hectare during the same period.

The area under apple crop further increased by 23,940 hectares between 2005 and 2017 but the yield dropped to 5 tonnes per hectare. The situation is so distressing that apple growers are replacing old orchards with imported high-yielding rootstock.

Sufficient chilling hours and moisture during the winter are essential for a good apple crop while hailstorm at the flowering stage is very harmful. The temperature must remain below 7°C for proper chilling, which varies with latitude as apple growing areas fall mainly in the temperate zone.

The required chilling hours are met if temperatures remain low in January and February but snowfall is essential for moisture required for a good crop, says Prem Singh Chauhan, a progressive farmer from Kotkhai. Chauhan has converted his one hectare into a money spinner by raising around 10,000 plants (8,000 of apple and 2,000 of stone fruits) using the ultra-high density plantation technique.

Climate change

Shrinking glaciers, large-scale felling of trees and ruthless cutting of hills for the construction of roads, and declining precipitation are also contributing to climate change and global warming, making agriculture, horticulture and forestry unsustainable.

Skiing and ice-skating, two major attractions for tourists and locals during the winter, have also fallen prey to the vagaries of weather. Ski slopes remaining under a thick blanket of snow for two to three months have become a thing of the past as the snowline is moving upward. This phenomenon is being witnessed even in Narkanda, which is located at an altitude of 9,000 feet, and skiers are shifting to Auli in Uttarakhand and Gulmarg in Jammu and Kashmir.

Climate change has also taken its toll on ice-skating at Asia’s oldest natural ice-skating rink at Shimla. It had the lowest number of six skating sessions in 2017 against 50 to 100 sessions in an average dependable year.

Challenges

It is difficult to widen roads in hills. Parking slots should be constructed according to a long-term plan and a strict regulatory regime is required to check haphazard constructions and ease traffic congestion.

Changing weather patterns, attributed to climate change, have altered the dynamics of agriculture, horticulture, tourism, water supply and hydropower generation.