Neglected Pilgrim Circuit

Five years is a long time for a road, a shrine, or a tourist's patience. Yet that is precisely how long the Pilgrimage-Tourism Circuits sanctioned under the Capex Plan 2020-21 have been limping along, with the Government itself now admitting, in a reply tabled in the Assembly, that 29 works worth a mere Rs 514.38 lakh are "under execution" out of a total sanctioned outlay of Rs 35.19 crore for five circuits-Mansar, Purmandal, Utterbehni, Sukrala Mata and Shiv Khori. That such a modest fraction of the approved cost has actually been underutilised, half a decade after sanction, tells its own story of intent versus implementation.

The Government's disclosure is notable as much for what it withholds as for what it reveals. It offers no timeline for completion, no explanation for the delay, and no accounting for whether the original schedules were ever revised. The response is a familiar litany of destinations where "developmental interventions have been taken up or initiated" - Suchetgarh, Sudhmahadev, Patnitop, Basholi, Bhaderwah/Gatha, Baradari, Kesari Hills and Behra/Qasab, among them. Encouraging as the announcement sounds on paper, the details of these projects remain largely unknown to the public, and on the ground, the most basic requirement of any tourism circuit - a decent, motorable road - is conspicuously missing in almost every one of these places.

This is not a minor omission. It is the crux of the problem. People protested not long ago over the state of the Samba-Mansar road. The Jammu-Mansar road fares no better, and the approach to Sukrala Mata remains in similar disrepair. The Satwari to R.S. Pura stretch has waited years for repair work that never quite arrives, and Patnitop, one of Jammu division's flagship destinations, tells much the same story. No amount of budgetary allocation, however generous on paper, can substitute for the ability of a pilgrim or tourist to simply reach a destination in comfort and safety. Tourism does not begin at the shrine gate; it begins on the road that leads there.

Equally troubling is the recurring pattern of unutilised funds being surrendered year after year by development authorities across Jammu division. This is public money, sanctioned for a public purpose, quietly returned unspent while the projects it was meant to fund remain incomplete. It raises uncomfortable but necessary questions about planning capacity, administrative will, and accountability at every level of execution.

The comparison with neighbouring Himachal Pradesh is instructive and, frankly, embarrassing. There, sites such as Kangra, Dharamshala, Jwalaji and Baijnath are seamlessly interconnected by buses running at half-hour intervals, allowing a pilgrim visiting one shrine to move naturally to the next. Lodging and dining facilities are available across budget ranges. In Jammu, by contrast, there is no comparable bus network from the railway station or from Katra to the wider circuit of religious sites, and most destinations barring a handful remain without basic amenities. Without knowing a site exists or being able to reach it, a tourist cannot plan a visit to a site they do not know exists or cannot reach - and on both counts, Jammu's tourism machinery has fallen short. There can be no ambiguity about this.

Amid this general inertia, one example stands out. The JSW Foundation's infrastructure upgrades and beautification work at the Shiv Khori shrine in Reasi demonstrate what focused, well-resourced intervention can achieve. It is a model worth studying rather than ignoring. If the Tourism Department and district administrations lack the capacity or urgency to deliver on their own sanctioned plans, there is a strong case for exploring public-private partnerships more seriously, rather than treating PPP as an afterthought.

Jammu's religious tourism potential is, on paper, unmatched. But potential unaccompanied by roads, transport, amenities and administrative accountability is merely a line item in a Government file. The much-publicised Mansar rejuvenation plan remains largely just that - publicity. Purmandal and Utterbehni continue to be sites of announcement rather than achievement. Unless the Government revisits its planning priorities and builds in genuine accountability for timelines and expenditure, the pattern will simply repeat: a trickle of devoted pilgrims will make the journey regardless, carrying home tales of neglect, while the circuits remain, as they have for five years now, permanently under construction on paper alone.