In our view, tourism is mainly useful if you live in the capital, Leh. In many villages elsewhere in Ladakh, its benefits are barely visible. Travel agencies and shops in town are often owned by people from Jammu, Manali, Srinagar or Delhi. The government provides loans for hotels and guest houses, but the resulting opportunities remain concentrated around the city.
Tourism creates jobs in trekking, guiding, cooking, portering, hotels, restaurants and shops. Many students work during the summer to pay for the next school year. Yet farming is declining as people turn fields into guest houses or leave agricultural work behind.
Employment has grown, including employment for outsiders, but many local incomes have not kept pace with rising prices. People who do not profit from tourism still pay more for everyday goods. Shops now sell many new products, including imported fruit, vegetables and drinks such as Coca-Cola. Tourists consume much of this, while everyone has to deal with the packaging and waste.
Tourism has made Leh look richer, but higher prices and growing waste are shared even by families who receive none of the income.
One positive change is that locally collected tax revenue now remains in Ladakh instead of going directly to Delhi. Medical services have improved around Leh, but hospitals elsewhere are still scarce and expensive.
The telephone system is another frustration. Connections are poor, concentrated in Leh and expensive to repair. Problems are often patched rather than solved, and customers have little recourse when they are overcharged.
Education is expanding in quantity, but not enough in quality. Ladakhi is not taught in schools. Children learn another Indian language and English, while their own language is absent from formal education. Textbooks have little connection with Ladakhi life and culture, which makes learning feel remote and demotivating.
Teacher training is very limited. Some public teachers begin work after finishing only tenth or twelfth grade. Kashmiri teachers have sometimes been transferred to Ladakh as punishment for misconduct elsewhere, and some hardly attend. More Ladakhi teachers are now entering the schools, and we hope this will reduce the high examination failure rate. Good colleges, however, remain outside the region.
Education cannot prepare Ladakhi children for the future if their textbooks ignore the place, language and culture in which they live.
Infrastructure is mixed. More villages have roads, but electricity may be available for only two or three hours a day. Villages often still have clean drinking water, while Leh faces pollution and serious shortages. Hotels in the upper town draw heavily from the supply, leaving residents below to queue at a central pump.
Leh has rubbish collection, although the waste is dumped above the city. Villages have no collection system. Better education has improved hygiene inside homes, but streets remain littered.
Outsiders cannot legally buy land because property is reserved for residents of Jammu and Kashmir State, but prices around Leh have still risen sharply. Crime, drug use and alcohol use have increased too. Clothing and marriage patterns are changing: younger people wear Western styles, arranged marriage remains stronger in villages, and love marriage is more common in town. Women in Leh increasingly work on equal terms.
If development continues without better education, water, electricity and waste management, Leh may become richer on paper but dirtier, more polluted and more difficult for its own residents to live in.