DEHRADUN: The huge gap between tourist arrivals recorded by the Uttarakhand Government and current registrations in Mussoorie has raised a serious question over the state’s tourism data and registration machinery.
According to an RTI reply obtained by SDC Foundation President Anoop Nautiyal, only 58,732 tourists were registered in Mussoorie between January and May 2026.
This compares with 3,78,037 tourist visits during January-May 2022, a figure cited by the Uttarakhand Government itself in its report submitted to the National Green Tribunal.
There is no doubt that January to May may have been a stronger tourist period in 2022, and tourist footfall in 2026 may reasonably have been lower. Even allowing for a 20–25 per cent variation, however, the enormous gap between the two sets of figures cannot be easily explained by seasonal fluctuations alone.
The comparison raises a much bigger question: Is Uttarakhand’s tourist-registration machinery actually recording the true number of visitors entering Mussoorie?
Nautiyal said the disparity requires immediate verification. “The possibility that only a small fraction of tourists are being registered cannot be ruled out. The suggestion that perhaps only 5–10 per cent of actual visitors are being captured needs to be independently validated, but the present figures clearly demand an urgent review of the system,” he said.
The issue is particularly serious because tourist registration is linked to the broader carrying-capacity assessment ordered by the National Green Tribunal after the Joshimath land-subsidence crisis.
The Uttarakhand Government had constituted a nine-member committee headed by the Chief Secretary and identified 18 preventive and remedial measures for Mussoorie.
But carrying capacity cannot be scientifically determined if the basic tourist numbers themselves are unreliable.
The implications are substantial. Under-recording tourist inflow could lead to an underestimate of pressure on roads, traffic, parking, water supply, sewage, waste management, accommodation, emergency services and the fragile Himalayan environment.
Mussoorie’s peak-season traffic jams, parking crisis and pressure on civic infrastructure already provide a visible picture of a destination struggling to absorb tourist surges.
Nautiyal said the registration mechanism should be urgently overhauled and cross-verified with hotel occupancy, traffic counts, taxi movement, parking utilisation and other available datasets.
The glaring discrepancy has now put the Uttarakhand tourism establishment’s data-collection machinery under scrutiny.
The question is simple but fundamental: if the state cannot accurately count the tourists entering Mussoorie, how can it scientifically determine how many tourists Mussoorie can safely accommodate?
