The low road

Uttarakhand's ecological balance must be protected

The controversy over widening roads in the fragile Himalayan region of Uttarakhand, popularly known as the Char Dham, has reached untenable proportions. The plan started as a religious tourism project but has somehow morphed into a national security imperative. Neither argument is justified when weighed against the destructive impact of this massive infrastructure project on one of the world’s most ecologically endangered regions. The original Rs 12,000-crore project to offer pilgrims seamless four-lane connectivity to four key shrines in the upper Himalayas, for which the prime minister laid the foundation stone in 2016, was ill-conceived in the first place and