The breathtakingly beautiful sand dunes of Jaisalmer are fast losing their height and turning into garbage dumps as a result of unregulated tourist flow.

Broken beer bottles, empty mineral water bottles, plastic wrappers and all sorts of environmentally hazardous items are not only being left behind by the tourists but, more shockingly, buried under the sand by the camp operators.

Unchecked footfall, movement of vehicles right up to the dunes and camel carts ferrying tourists are taking a heavy toll of the natural sand dunes which used to be about 55 to 60 metres in height about 30 years ago, and have now reduced to half, the locals claims. But, none seems to be complaining since tourism is the main source of livelihood for the local population in Jaisalmer district which is very close to the international border along Pakistan.

“Sam and Khuri sand dunes are the only two open for tourists. Sam, which gets its name from a nearby village, is the biggest and the first one to be opened in the 1970s when it was discovered after Bollywood blockbuster ‘Reshma Aur Shera’ was shot on the dunes followed by Satyajit Ray’s ‘Sonar Kella’,” R.S.Mertia, an authority on desert vegetation, told The Hindu. After these two events, there was no looking back and the Rajasthan government opened the first Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation hotel here.

Now every second house in the town is either a hotel or a guest house — ranging from heritage to luxury to budget hotels. Most of these hotel owners have bought lands around the sand dunes and set up desert camps during winters. “However, there are no guidelines or any kind of regulations for opening these camps and can be a serious security threat. Being close to the international border, there needs to some kind or check on the tourists who stay there. No one even knows what kind of activities are going on there. It could be drugs, prostitution or anything,” warns a senior journalist who did not wish to be named.

Mayank Bhatia, a hotelier, shares the journalist’s concern and points out desert camps were mushrooming all over.

Some government officers did make some initiatives to keep the dunes clean by disallowing or regulating the use of plastic but it ended with their departure,” says Dr Mertia. “Just 10 years ago when I ran the train between Jaipur and Jaisalmer, we would often encounter sandstorms and there were times we had to stop the train for hours and clear the track,” a group of train drivers told this correspondent.