An open letter to fellow Kangra valley residents: 

Let us offset the proposed government move to premit sale of tea gardens

My dear fellow Kangra valley residents,

Departing from routine kind of posts, this time I am making it an open personal communication. Forgive me if I sound too presumptuous or intrusive.

As residents of this beautiful valley you must all be witness to fast shrinking green cover, unplanned, unregulated construction, unchecked encroachments on our narrow roads and what not. Unscientific mining, tunnelling, hill cutting, dynamiting, tree felling have severely degraded the fragile hill-ecology in many parts of the state. Therefore land/mudslides this time have been more massive and destructive than ever before.  With such dismal scenario as a backdrop, there comes this news almost like a bomb shell:  the proposed government move to frame a policy to allow sale of tea gardens. And it is carried in a newspaper of standing, The Tribune, dated 29 August 2017 and 30 August 2017.

Don’t you think, as I do, that this would sound a death knell for whatever little is left of the pristine green cover of the valley? The tea gardens with a fairly good tree canopy for shade as an essential requirement for good tea growth are not just the “lungs” of the area but they are part of our environmental heritage. Wiping them out wholesale would be disastrous both environmentally and as part of a valuable legacy we have grown to live with. And if it happens so, it would be the last sad chapter in the story of 'Death of the Valley'.

Therefore instead of crying hoarse, lamenting and shedding tears after the deed is done and when it is too late, let’s all join hands to pre-empt this. Let’s request and put pressure on the government not to frame any such kind of policy. With this end in view I have initiated a petition on the site called change.org. change.org has already run several public interest campaigns with resounding success. If you feel that you have stakes in preserving the green cover of the valley, then I request you to sign the petition and share it with your friends on Facebook and other social networking sites. For this you will have to visit the site, sign up and become a member. Please do so and let’s get going. After enough signatures have been obtained change.org will forward it to the CM and CJ (High Court) for action and will keep you posted with its progress by e-mail. And if we succeed, we could launch more such public campaigns to preserve the green glory of our valley for ourselves and more importantly for the coming generations.

Last but not the least, I must add that I bear no hostility or malice towards the owners of tea gardens. I have wonderful rapport and strong family ties running for generatioins with some of them. I mean them no harm, no ill will at all. Nor do I have any political agenda of any kind.  Therefore I am sure they will view this initiative in the right perspective and excuse my audacity, if any. I also want to add that some of them have been active in public life and have been and still are contributing significantly to the development of the area. I, unhesitatingly, place on record my unstinted support for their public contribution,  and respect, love and admiration due on account of our strong family bonds, but (humbly) exercise my right to  express my views - for whatever they are worth - on a issue of immense environmental consequences. 

Yours truly,

Subhash

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