Nainital is overrun: Why tourists are breaking this hill town

On April 12, 2025, the Nainital hill station saw massive traffic jams, overflowing hotels, and chaos on Mall Road.

Transcript

00:00On 12 April 2025, a long queue of vehicles choked up the main road leading up to Naini Tal,

00:05a scene that's become all too familiar. With temperatures crossing 40 degrees in the northern

00:10plains, tourists rushed to the hills. The roads were jammed and even VIP convoys were stuck.

00:15It took hours in heavy police deployment just to get the traffic moving.

00:19At Naini Lake, tourists stood in hour-long lines for a short boat ride.

00:23Hotels were packed, markets were buzzing, and while tourism businesses were smiling,

00:27residents were stuck, quite literally. Reportedly, students couldn't read school,

00:32emergency vehicles struggled to pass, tourists who came for peace were trapped in pollution and noise.

00:37But here's the thing, Naini Tal's popularity is not the problem, its infrastructure is.

00:43On peak weekends, over 4,000 vehicles entered the town, which has just about 2,000 legal parking spots.

00:49In response, on April 5, 2025, the Naini Tal municipality proposed raising the vehicle entry

00:54fee from 120 rupees to 500 rupees to discourage the flood of cars during peak season and long

01:00holidays. But this isn't the first red flag. The Uttarakhand High Court has warned repeatedly.

01:06In May 2023, it recommended banning private vehicles' entry during rush periods.

01:11In June 2023, it bluntly stated that Naini Tal could go the way of Joshi Mutt,

01:16another Himalayan town now struggling with land subsidence and overdevelopment.

01:20Every long weekend, Naini Tal becomes a mirror of how we treat our hill stations like escape rooms,

01:26never asking if they have the space, the systems or the strength to hold us all.

01:30And if this continues, the question won't be how to reach Naini Tal,

01:33it will be whether Naini Tal can survive the people who keep coming.