Introduction

The valley of Bhaderwah in Himalayas is located on 75º-40' East longitude and 33º-4' North Latitude. The Bhaderwah Valley in the North has beautiful Swar Dhar Mountains, in the South the series of mountains from Chatter Gali-Sonbain-Guldanda-Padri Gali, in the East the Jai Valley and in the West Seoj Gali and in the South-West Kaplas and Kailash Kund. The dense green forests add charm to the valley which is crisscrossed by a series of mountains. The Neeru River is central to the beauty of the saucer shaped valley and the Deodar and Kail forests are the lungs of the valley. Sir G.T.Vigne, who toured the entire mountain stretches in the region in 1842 A.D., described Bhaderwah as "The happy region-the prettiest country ever seen in the mountains." It is popularly known as Chota Kashmir and has the potential to become an attractive tourist spot.

Bhaderwah is endowed by nature with location advantages that it has the potential to become hub of tourist activity. It is surrounded by beautiful mountains and snow capped peaks which makes the stay in Bhaderwah pleasant. Excellent scenic, cultural, religious and cultural places are within short distances ranging from a few kilometers to 40 kilometers. Even drive, walk or horse ride to these places is enchanting. he drive towards Bhaderwah which starts from Pul-Doda

along the left Bank of river Neeru is a reflection of the nature that this area stores for a visitor

i. Sustainable economic development of Bhaderwah by making it an attractive tourist destination for regional, interstate and global tourism
ii. Regional tourism development planning to exploit the potential of Bhaderwah as transition between Kashmir Valley , Pathankot and Himachal Pradesh.
iii. Socio-Economic Development, private sector participation by expanding the economic space in which people can exercise their initiative to expand opportunities to enhance there potential. Develop few villages like Thanala, Nouri & Chinta as Eo-tourism villages
iv. Increasing employment opportunities
v. Development of domestic, Pilgrim tourism for budget category
vi. Increasing Bhaderwah’s share in State. National and International tourism

Put Bhaderwah on the tourism map of J&K through the development of road infrastructure connecting it to Pathankot, the Kashmir Valley and Himachal Pradesh
Provide necessary tourism infrastructure for selling it as cultural, scenic and adventure tourist spot
Sustainable tourism development of the whole region ensuring environmental conservation
Ensure that the tourism acts as trigger for the economic development of the region through multiplier effect

Use the potential of Bhaderwah as an intermediate tourist destination between Himachal Pradesh , Kashmir Valley and Punjab for the economic development of the region
Integrated tourism development in the region to attract the tourists visiting Himachal to visit the Kashmir Valley through Bhaderwah and similarly attract the tourists visiting Kashmir valley via an alternate route from Pathankot-Basoli-sarthal-Bhaderwah -Kishtwar-daksum
Sell Bhaderwah as unexplored region with architectural and cultural idiosyncrasies as the tourism strength of the region
Stretch the spatial dimension of the tourism towards the East of NHIA and sell it as a region of adventure tourism potential
Create synergies between road infrastructure development between habitable villages and tourism development through advocacy
Select few most attractive tourist spots in Bhaderwah region and sell them as a package with same number of tourist spots in Kishtwar, Daksum and Wadhwan.

Most probable spots in the Bhaderwah region that can be included in the list are:

Seoj & Kailash
Jai valley-sabardhar
Sonbain-Guldanda-chatergala
Padri Gali-Bhal Padri
Bhaderwah town & periphery

This package can be introduced to trekkers as the Favourite trekking circuit in Northern India. Extend this list to include Leh, Sheshnag, Marwah & Warwan valleys endowed with pristine beauties in the mountains of greater Himalayas.

Advocacy for stretching the tourism towards far East in the region from NH1A
Provide diverse adventure and amusement facilities in the circuit
Facilitate participation of the people of the region in Pligrim tourism development of the region & as a tourist destination

Regional Setting

Bhaderwah borders Chamba district of Himachal Pradesh and Udhampur & Kathua districts of Jammu province. It borders Kishtwar and Doda tehsils of Doda district. One of advantages which has generally been ignored in planning and development of Bhaderwah and Kishtwar in the region is its proximity to the Kashmir Valley. Kishtwar is already connected to Daksum through the road which runs through the Sinthan top and the road remains open for 6-8 months a year. There are possibilities of connecting Kishtwar to Daksum via Garol and Vailu which will reduce travel time from Bhaderwah to the Valley drastically. This will also open up the possibility of connecting the landlocked regions of Wadhwan and Marwah to Doda district, albeit through the Kashmir valley.

This advantage of Bhaderwah because of its regional setting at the cross-roads of the most potential regions - the Kashmir Valley - Himachal Pradesh & Pathankot - remains unexploited. The tourism planning of Bhaderwah till recently has been mainly focused on selling the Bhaderwah region in isolation of its proximity to the Kashmir Valley and Himachal Pradesh. This regional position qualifies Bhaderwah to be developed as a Gate-Way of tourism to Valley(J&K).

1.1. The strategy for tourism development

The strategy envisaged by the Local Authority is to desist from large scale investments in tourist infrastructure development at the first stage. This will be achieved by creating minimum requisite & flexible infrastructure to facilitate tourism growth. The Authority will do this infrastructure development underscoring the role of private developers and tourism operators in attracting the tourists in the region.

In the second stage the Authority will facilitate further Tourism infrastructure development in the region to cater the needs of academic ,pilgrim, adventure, cultural& conventional tourism, besides advocacy for adequate funding of the road infrastructure products connecting Bhaderwah to the Kashmir Valley in the North and Chamba(H.P) & pathankot in the South. The Authority will sell this as stretching the tourism horizons of J&K corridor towards the East which has remained unexplored. The planning & execution for the second stage tourism infrastructure development will be started in the first phase.

The third stage will involve the integration of surrounding villages having tourism potential with the local area by providing all necessary road and tourist infrastructure in these villages. This integration will start with the identification of the satellite tourist villages surrounding Bhaderwah Local Authority, identification of the necessary infrastructure for integration and the provision of this infrastructure. The identification and selection of model tourist villages will start along with phase I and the process of integration of the last village with the tourist potential.

Regional Tourism Development

Although this scale of regional tourism development is different from the scale of tourism development at the local authority level but while planning Bhaderwah the role of regional tourism needs to be underscored. Bhaderwah can get boost in tourism through the development of whole region as tourist circuit. The development of tourist circuit in the region has to be established in two phases

One at the region which will connect the tourist spots in Bhaderwah, Kishtwar and Doda
Second the scale at the regional level by connecting the primary circuit to Valley
Third, connecting the bigger circuit to Punjab and Himachal Pradesh through Bhaderwah-Basohli and Bhaderwah-Chamba road
Expansion of this network by incorporating more unexplored spots especially in the Bhaderwah - Kishtwar - Daksum circuit.

The role of Local Authority in the regional tourism development is more of advocacy and coordination between different agencies and assessing the economic viability of these projects.The local authority along with other local authorities in the region can set up a conglomerate of local authorities - a non-statutory body for an effective role in the development of the region.

Because of the flexibility of tourism industry unlike agriculture and manufacturing which is location specific it can be an ideal tool for decentralized regional development. In case of Bhaderwah culture, heritage, nature spirituality can be packaged and provide infinite possibilities. The advantages include that the spread effects of tourism are widespread and not concentrated in urban areas. Tourism industry is labor intensive and the multiplier effect of this industry is very high (DPR, 2005).

The DPR for the Development of Tourist Circuit in Jammu and Kashmir advocates the development/up-gradation of inter and intra-state connectivity and provision of efficient social and physical infrastructure as focus of development strategy. The main focus of Bhaderwah Development Authority is the development of the local area of the authority with the underlying objectives of the economic development of the authority area. Bhaderwah offers adventure, scenic and cultural tourism potential. The Development Authority envisages developing Bhaderwah as the hub of tourist activity with fixed infrastructure for tourism provided in the town and flexible infrastructure spread over plethora of places surrounding the town.

Bhaderwah has also become a hub of pilgrimage activity. The festivities start from early spring in April and first center of religious activity is the famous temple of Subernag situated at a height of 10,200 feet in Swardhar Mountains. Devotees of Lord Shiva from the neighboring districts gather to celebrate the occasion and the festivities continue for 2-3 days. This festival is followed by week long celebrations at neighboring majestic peak Roushera. This peak at 11,000 feet from MSL has Roushera Devi temple. The celebrations continue during Navratri period for 9 days and attract tourists from J&K and Himachal Pradesh. Other places having religious tourism importance are:

Gupt Ganga:

It has a cave and it is said that during Agyatvas Pandavs spent few days here in the land of snakes. A big foot on the rocks of this temple is attributed to Bhim. The legend also goes that there was a tunnel connecting Baderwah to Srinagar. Fishing in 2 kms stretch is prohibited and on the upper and downstream the stream has trout fish. Shantana Nag temple: This temple at Sarthangal is considered to be Surya and Kali Mata temple.

1 Qtl temple : The chelas dance with "one quintal" statue on their head.Legend goes that this has been happening since Akbar’s time to celebrate the win of Raja Nagpal over Akbar.

Yatras

This yatra starts from Baderwah with Chari and goes to Mani Mahesh. The Yatra goes in the month of August. In 2006 the Yatra will start on August 7.

This Yatra precedes Kailash Yatra. Around 10000 people participate in the Yatra. Mani Mahesh Yatra comes back after 7 days. The yatra starts with fanfare including the play of trumpets, Baja…

This Yatra follows Mani Mahesh Yatra and starts with Chari from Gatha in Baderwah and then goes to Vasu ki Nag, Ramtund where it stays for the night and then to Kailash. The Yatra takes place in August and ends on the Kailash Kund. It takes 2 hours to cover the periphery of the Kund. Legend has that Ramtund is a mythological places. Legend has that 7 headed snake is seen in Kund. Another Chari reaches The Kailash Kund from Billawer on the same day when the Baderwah Chari reached the Kund. People from Jammu, Kathua, Udhampur come to join Yatra. After one month the same Chari goes to Asha Pathi and reaches there on the day of Amawas. On this occasion there is Dako folk dance for full nights and people from other communities also participate in these functions.

Machail Yatra:

The route of the Yatra is Baderwah-Pul Doda-Thatri-Machail. The Yatra started as a family tradition by Thakurs in 1980s has become a major Yatra in the District. The Yatra culminates in Chandi Mata ki Mandir in Machail.

On 1st July the Yatra with around 2000-3000 people come to Baderwah and for 1 month and 18 days Trishul stays in Baderwah. Then Machail Yatra starts towards Chandi Mata Mandir. Buses come from Jammu on 16 August (around 16 buses) about 40,000 people participate in the Yatra. People in the region attracted to Chandi Mata. People from all communities participate and Trishuls by Jains. Temple facility created by the Yatra organizers has halls for all communities and even for different sects in Hindu Community.

Mela Pat: This Mela in the name of Vas goes on for 15 days.

Content and Photos Provided by Chief Executive Officer,Bhadarwah Development Authority

For any queries contact
Mr. Talat Parvez
Chief Executive Officer
E-Mail:talat_rohella2005@yahoo.co.in

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