Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB), it seems, is grappling in the dark and as well looking for scapegoats outside it instead of looking within for the chaos being witnessed in the Kashmir hills as the annual pilgrimage to Amarnath, one of the holiest shrines of Hindus situated at a height of 12,729 feet, evolves.
Apart from the visitors finding the amenities available at various locations in the yatra area insufficient and facing other problems like scarcity of LPG and overpricing, more than fifty pilgrims have died, most of them due to cardiac arrest, during the first fortnight of the annual yatra which officially began on June 25. Jammu and Kashmir governor N.N.Vohra, who is also the chairman of the SASB, is concerned over the increasing number of fatalities and has asked for taking urgent measures towards addressing the health related issued during the remaining period of the 39-day-long event.
He has also directed the concerned government officials and agencies to critically analyse all possible causes for the moralities to identify the short terms which could probably contain and reduce the number of fatalities. In this connection, he on Monday asked the CEO of the SASB to issue immediate instructions to all concerned officers in various yatra camps to further augment healthcare facilities in the entire pilgrimage area, including increasing the deployment of specialist doctors at the base camps and at critical places like Brarimarg, Sangam, Pissu-Top, Zojibal and Nagakoti to attend to the seriously ailing patients. He asked the CEO to immediately contact the Army and seek its help in urgently setting up a medical-check camp in the Sangam area whereas the director of the J&K health department has been requested to further gear up the arrangements for shifting of critical patients to the base camps and, thereafter, to identified hospitals in Srinagar for prompt appropriate treatment.
But what is being ignored rather suppressed is the fact of overcrowding at the base-camps, halting places, along the tracks and even at the cave shrine. On Monday, as many as 43,401 pilgrims were allowed to perform darshan of the Shivling at the sanctum sanctorum, taking the number of devotees visiting the revered place of worship in first 15 days to 3,43,218. This suggests that the SASB has allowed at an average more than twenty two thousand pilgrims to pay obeisance at the cave-shrine every day which is in total disregard of the rule book. In 1996, thousands of pilgrims on the way to Amarnath were caught in an snowstorm resulting into the death of 273 pilgrims and scores of their Kashmiri hosts and helpers, including ponnywallas and labourers. The Sengupta Committee, formed by the government after the catastrophe, had in its report released on December 2, 1996 made several recommendations, which included regulation of the number of people visiting the cave-shine and making registration of the yatries and allocation of fixed quota to the states mandatory. The report had asked for allowing a total of 3,500 pilgrims to the cave shrine every day, 2,800 from traditional Pahalgam and 700 from the shorter Baltal routes.
Though the SASB has publicly — and repeatedly so — asked the intending pilgrims to relocate to the base-camps of Pahalgam and Baltal only after getting themselves registered with it, these places are being thronged by unregistered pilgrims in large numbers on daily basis right from June 25 itself and, in fact, about fifty thousand people had reached there two to three days prior to the commencement of the yatra. Ironically, none of the unregistered pilgrim was turned back by the SASB officials. The leniency not only made the job of various government agencies and security forces more difficult but also caused inconvenience to the registered pilgrims. In reality, the SASB encouraged overcrowding in the yatra area by announcing instant registration facility has been made available near the base-camps.