The Green In Our Valley Is Becoming A Mere Memory
Kashmir needs commercial growth, jobs and better housing. But development cannot be allowed to ride on the back of its most fertile soils
Drive on any main road in the Valley today, and the story tells itself. Where paddy fields and orchards once stretched unbroken, there now rise shopping complexes, palatial houses, fuel stations and tightly packed colonies. Kashmir’s commercial boom is coming at a frightening cost; our best agricultural land is being eaten away, kanal by kanal, village by village. Official figures tell a worrying tale. During the last 10 years, the Valley has lost more than 78,000 hectares, to non-agricultural uses, including residential and commercial purposes. In districts like Budgam, Pulwama, Anantnag and Baramulla, the area under paddy has declined alarmingly, even as built-up area along highways and on town fringes has surged. While the Srinagar district specifically reported a minor fluctuation, other parts of the valley are losing an average of 1,375 hectares of agricultural land annually. The drive from Pampore to Srinagar, once marked by uninterrupted saffron fields and orchards, now passes through an almost continuous strip of shops, godowns, showrooms and residential clusters. Similar stories unfold along the highway corridors and on the outskirts of every major town. Behind this rapid change lies a harsh arithmetic. A kanal of paddy or orchard land that barely sustains a family can fetch several lakh rupees if sold for a commercial project or a new colony. For households battling unemployment, rising prices and debt, the sale of land becomes the easiest escape. Weak enforcement of land-use laws, frequent “adjustments” of master plans, and a culture of post-facto regularisation have turned fertile belts into the softest targets. The consequences go far beyond what meets the eye. Kashmir already depends heavily on food grains brought from outside. As local paddy land and vegetable fields shrink, the Valley’s food dependence deepens further, leaving us exposed to price shocks and supply disruptions. When families sell land, they lose not only a livelihood but also a safety net and a link to generations of farming knowledge. There is an environmental bill too. Concretisation of karewas and paddy belts chokes natural drainage, reduces groundwater recharge and worsens the risk of urban flooding. The vanishing green buffers around towns are felt in hotter summers, dustier air and the loss of breathing spaces. This cannot simply be dismissed as the price of progress. Kashmir needs commercial growth, jobs and better housing. But development cannot be allowed to ride on the back of its most fertile soils. What is urgently required is honest, time-bound enforcement of existing land-use laws, a firm ring-fencing of high-yield areas, and incentives that make it worthwhile for farmers to keep their land under cultivation. If the present trend continues, we may soon live in a Valley with more malls than mandis and more banquet halls than barns; richer in concrete, poorer in grain, and dangerously unmoored from the land that sustains it.
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