“THE history of [the hill station near the federal capital] Murree starts soon after the occupation of Rawalpindi in 1849 by the British troops. Soon thereafter, Mr Thornton, the commissioner of the Punjab, proposed […] a hill station near Rawalpindi […] for the European troops of the Bengal Army. […] For some years, it served as the civilian headquarters of the Punjab […],” writes Dr Saifur Rahman Dar in his foreword to Prof Dr Farakh A. Khan’s quite charming book, Murree during the Raj: A British Town in the Hills.

The beauty of the area to which Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi belongs peaked in living memory during the Ayub Khan era, when it was the location of the general’s camp office. The colonial-era buildings, and the graceful streets and hotels, were given greater value by security that ensured order to the point that pedestrians walking down the promenade kept to the left (aligned with the traffic), while those making their way up stayed to the right. Photographs from those times do indeed contain parasols and twinkling boots.

Let the eye of the imagination pan out and fast forward to 2018. Last week, a social media campaign was launched asking tourists to boycott the hill station because of the misbehaviour by hotel touts and transporters. The issues raised were overcharging, substandard food, and the lack of facilities — a fall from grace indeed for what was once considered the queen of Pakistan’s hill stations.

What has happened to Murree, the queen of hill stations?

Over the years, the area’s permanent population has increased exponentially. Then there is the visiting population: about 10 to 15 million tourists visit Murree and the adjoining Galliyat each year, during the summer and winter ‘seasons’. And yet, complains the social media campaign, thousands of tourists end up spending nights on the roadside during the summers because of the lack of regulation of hotels, transport and services.

During earlier Sharif-led governments, much effort was expended (and ultimately wasted) on mistaken ideas of ‘development’ in the hills (such as Patriata). The sad fact remains that tourists are entirely justified in their complaints. For some three decades, at least, the lack of regulation and growing influx of people has turned the area into an ugly, sprawling jungle of profiteers, opportunists, and helpless visitors far from home.

First, there is a severe parking problem. Why cannot lots be created lower down the hillside at Lower Topa or the bifurcation of the motorway, with a shuttle service up to Murree? The number of vehicles could be gauged from data available with the toll plazas.

Once parking is found, the next challenge is that hotels charge according to the hopeful family’s need: if there is a greater crush of customers, prices are jacked up indiscriminately, which amounts to blackmail. If, in the technical point of law, there is a requirement to obtain a hotel or restaurant licence, it certainly doesn’t seem to be properly enforced in urban Murree. Visitors are encircled by pushy touts trying to ensnare them, to the point of resorting to manhandling. The scene is not unlike the scrum usually seen at bus stations or with taxi drivers at airport parking lots.

If a family is fortunate enough to secure affordable shelter, the next issue is food and water. The former, again, is an unregulated, overpriced and substandard sector on the whole. Yet the issue could potentially be fairly easily resolved by, for example, the Punjab Food Authority.

After nutrition comes hygiene. Water that can be used for bathing and brushing teeth has for years been in very short supply in urban Murree, and of very poor quality.

The population — especially counting visitors — is too high for spot-harvestable (from rainfall) water to suffice. The water supply comes from further up the hills from Doonga Gali, and there is an insufficiency of the storage tanks near St Denys’ School in urban Murree. Years ago, a plan was chalked out to lay another pipeline and pump water up from the Kohala River; those pipes were acquired but can today be seen rusting in large numbers by the side of the road going from Murree to Patriata and other routes down to the river.

There are a host of other issues, but space allows me to discuss just one more. Most of urban Murree does not have a formal sewerage piping system, and it is up to establishments to build septic tanks. Many do not do so, instead running sewage off into the streams or down the mountainside, contaminating the groundwater and eventually letting it leach into the Rawal Dam, which is one of the main water supply sources to the Islamabad/ Rawalpindi area. Why can hotelier licences not be linked to a proper (and inspected) waste disposal system?

If managed properly, Murree could yet be the gem that it once was, notwithstanding the load it is under. The only thing is, someone needs to care.

The writer is a member of staff.
hajrahmumtaz@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, May 7th, 2018