More Pilgrims Than a Temple Town can Handle: Study shows how pilgrimage sites can't manage the present surge of visitors

Abstract

It's sad but true: Holy pilgrims to India's holy sites are creating a wholly unpleasant mess. Several major pilgrimage destinations in India, principally Vrindavan and Tirumala-Tirupati, were the subjects of a study conducted by Kiran Ajit Shinde at the Asian Institute of Technology's School of Environment, Resources and Development, Thailand, in which environmental degradation due to pressures exerted by an increase of visitors was discussed in detail. The number of pilgrims, also known as the floating population, often significantly outnumbers the local population, severely compounding issues that plague nearly all of India. Vrindavan is a small town, with a population of 56,000. About two million pilgrims come each year, an average of three times the local population every month. With a local population of less than 50,000, the little hill town of Tirumala hosted over 14 million pilgrims in 2001, an average of nearly 40,000 per day.