The declaration of the eco-sensitive regions have been done after many years as well as arguments in the Supreme Court about the centre not taking steps about it etc.

The source of the Ganga, apart from its religious signification has got huge impact on our environment. Most of our streams and rivers have been defiled by us either by throwing garbage, discharging effluents from our factories or by constructing dams.

It is important that pristine areas like the source of bhagirathi are protected from destruction.

It is unfortunate that these days development is misunderstood as concretisation and setting up of polluting factories. We cannot set up factories in every area. The Uttarakhand Govt. may declare some areas as backward and start giving sops (tax holidays) etc to attract investments in factories. However, those artificial inducements doesn't help and shouldn't be used to set up factories in such pristine areas.

Mindless construction of roads are also a big problem. The moment we cut open the hills, cutoff the trees, the landslides start. It is surprising that the Uttarakhand Government hasn't understood the reason for landslides. Its priority is to stop mindless destruction of our hills.

The local economy is dependent on tourism. The Government can promote eco-tourism with strict controls to safegaurd the environment. People don't want concrete hotels to stay. Tents are good enough and more ecofriendly. People will even pay more for that as is seen from our Botswana experience.

The Government has to bring out a legislation to maintain these places. The locals will have aspiration for more cash and factories etc. Let the area development authorities be given money for maintaining these areas in eco-friendly manner. The rest of the country is devastated. Atleast these places can act like the lungs for India and to a lesser extent for mother earth.