Reported by Al Jazeera
The vast ‘snow yard’ in otherwise arid Rajasthan state attracts hundreds of tourists daily, but residents face severe health risks.
Kishangarh, India – As Bagharam Gurjar kneels to pull weeds from his maize field in western India’s Rajasthan state, the sound of his wife coughing nearby makes him restless.
“Everything gets ruined when dust settles on the soil,” says Gurjar, 53, barely looking up.
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“May God make everything right,” replies his wife between bouts of chronic cough. “Otherwise, it becomes difficult to grow crops.”
The Gurjars are among nearly 5,000 people living in the vicinity of what has turned out to be one of the most unusual tourist destinations in India.
Their village, Bhogiyawas, is just 6km (4 miles) from Kishangarh, where a 300-acre (121-hectare) marble slurry dumping yard resembles a snow-clad landscape, attracting hundreds of tourists every day in an otherwise arid state.
Locally known as a “Snow Yard”, the landfill in Rajasthan’s Ajmer district is the largest of its kind in Asia. Its pristine white hills and slopes with water-filled pits provide a surreal backdrop for visitors, who get free entry to the site.
Newlyweds pose against the snowy backdrop or the blue artificial lake, while couples soon to get married organise pre-wedding photoshoots. Social media influencers throng the landfill to make reels. Music videos and movies are also frequently shot here.
“Everyone, right from my five-year-old niece to my mother, loves it very much. Their first impression was that this looks like Kashmir,” Salim Shahzada, a businessman from Uttar Pradesh state, told Al Jazeera, referring to Indian-administered Kashmir.
Shahzada said he had visited the place a couple of times and decided to bring his family along this time. But he had no idea about the health and environmental problems linked to the dumping yard.
“I do not have much knowledge about this place or its ill effects. I only know that this is where marble cutting waste is dumped and that the hill itself is made of this waste,” he said.
Kishangarh, a marble and granite hub, is home to nearly 1,200 processing units, with the total…