The significant shift in the policy framework links it with sustainability. Its implementation will require strong focus and adequate measures
Traditionally, India’s tourism policy has been based on three main components: the number of visitors, building tourist attractions and providing facilities for tourists. Due to the increase in climate-related issues and environmental destruction that occurred over previous years, policymakers have been challenged with this solution. A new perspective on the future of tourism is available with the Budget 2026 through the promotion of sustainable paths in the mountains, pathways to observe the turtles and bird species, as well as other nature-based tourism products. This perspective illustrates that tourism does not act as a source of revenue anymore; rather, it acts as a mechanism to create employment, enhance local conditions, and conserve natural resources. An analysis will be provided in this essay on the Environmental and Financial Model of Building environmentally sustainable mountain trails based on the Economic Survey 2025-6 and the Financial Framework of Union Budget 2026.
The additional context of the described proposed construction plans, in addition to these environmentally sustainable trails, include the construction of five new university townships near industrial corridors, consisting of planned academic cities with colleges/universities, research centres, skill buildings, and housing for over 50,000 students each. Critics contend that the creation of the townships will create disruption to the ecosystems that currently exist within mountain and coastal regions and create potential hazards to the seriously endangered whale populations currently residing due to these towns potentially also being developed within the vicinity of the affected communities.
Economic and Policy Environment: Tourism as a Growth Engine
According to the Economic Survey 2025-26, the biggest factor responsible for generating jobs and distributing wealth around India (especially in areas with low industrial production levels) is the tourism industry. Evidence for this claim can be found in numerous research studies. Based on data released by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) in 2024, the travel and tourism sector generates 20.9 trillion of value to the economy (equivalent to approximately 6.6% of total GDP) while also creating 46.5 million jobs. In addition, the WTTC projects that the tourism industry will need approximately 64 million qualified workers by 2035 to meet its projected future demand.
Recent statistics show that domestic tourism has been responsible for much of this growth. The ministry of tourism has reported a total of 2.5 billion domestic tourist visits into India in 2023, making it one of the world's largest domestic tourist markets. The enormous influx of people into the country generates tremendous economic opportunities, but these increased visitors also have negative impacts on our environment (including through damaged ecosystems caused by unsustainable tourism development along the coasts and in the mountains) as reported in the Economic Survey. Therefore, the 2026 Budget has selected sustainable trail developments as strategic nature-based tourism initiatives that result in economically viable operations while also enhancing environmental quality.
Budget 2026 and the Vision towards Sustainable Trails
During the Budget 2026 speech, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that they were going to create ecologically sustainable mountain trails in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu & Kashmir, and even in Araku Valley, the Eastern Ghats, and Podhigai Malai in the Western Ghats. Additional ones include turtle trails along nesting areas in Odisha, Karnataka and Kerala, and bird-watching trails in Pulicat Lake in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
She presented tourism as an engine for job creation and regional development, which brings economic benefits to both local communities and foreign investors. The Budget established ecological tourism as an educational programme which proposes to provide 10,000 tourist guides with training through a 12-week standardized course delivered at 20 national heritage sites in partnership with Indian Institutes of Management. The theory behind this transition describes how mass tourism evolved into controlled tourism through experience-based programmes that trained guides to escort tourists along designated paths while controlling entry points to minimize environmental damage. Mountain trails serve as low-impact pathways, creating formal trekking systems that stop uncontrolled foot traffic.
Vulnerability and Significance of Mountain Ecosystems to Climate
The Indian Himalayan Region is experiencing rising glacier melting and rain patterns, which create landslides and soil erosion problems due to infrastructure development and unsustainable tourism activities. The total number of visitors to Uttarakhand pilgrimage and trekking routes increased significantly during the last decade which resulted in environmental damage, according to research conducted by Negi et al. (2025). More than 6 crore tourists visited Uttarakhand in 2025, which marked the highest tourist count for the state since its establishment, according to a report in the Times of India (2025).
Small and previously remote regions are experiencing more rapid development than other areas do. Tourism in Uttarakhand's Vyas Valley grew from about 200 visitors in 2015 to almost 30,000 visitors by 2024 which shows how people should recognize that ecological pressure can exceed its threshold, according to The Times of India (2024). The focus on ecologically sustainable trails has become an environmental problem. Scientific design of such trails would allow controlled tourist movement through designated corridors while protecting wildlife areas and enabling scientists to measure ecological impacts. Mountain areas achieve sustainability through ecological rules which must be enforced because intent alone does not ensure sustainability.
University Townships: Growth vs. Ecology Risk
The Budget has allocated ₹55,724 crore to education which includes funding five university townships along industrial corridors through the state route / "challenge route." The self-sufficient hubs faced deforestation and water scarcity risks when they were built near Himachal/Uttarakhand mountains. The self-sufficient hubs faced deforestation and water scarcity risks when they were built near Himachal/Uttarakhand mountains. Environmental clearances had weak implementation in previous cases which led to this situation. Policy shows no requirement for ecological boundaries between townships and trails thus resulting in sustainability problems for both projects.
Critical Assessment: Lapses between Vision and Implementation
The budget presents progressive content; however, also it contains several critical deficiencies according to our evaluation.
● Assessment of carrying capacity lacks effective framework implementation. Budget documents do not provide visitor limits for trails. Budget documents lack visitor limits for trails while public policy documents do not explain how limits will be applied. The Economic Survey emphasizes the need to balance development with environmental preservation through its multiple statements but this requirement remains unfulfilled within existing policy enforcement frameworks.
● Climate resilience turns into a loosely connected framework. The proposal suggests offering mountain trails during the growing occurrence of extreme weather events which include landslides and flash floods and heat waves. The planning process for trails must include climate-risk mapping and disaster preparedness and adaptive design according to present standards. The presence of even low impact tourism facilities will increase vulnerability until they achieve integrated design.
● The guide-training initiative brings benefits to communities which own the programme; however its outcomes remain uncertain. Countries with ecotourism experience show that it can produce conservation benefits only after local communities gain access to decision-making power and revenue sharing. The Budget mentions employment and skilling without going into the institutional structures to ensure that the benefits are distributed mostly to the local inhabitants instead of foreign operators.
● The proximity of university townships to trails creates land conflicts. Industrial corridor development creates economic advantages while treating ecosystem protection as an optional choice because it lacks any requirements for green buffers or biodiversity offset measures between academic facilities and sensitive ecosystems.
Alignment with Economic Survey: Hope and Strain
The Economic Survey of 2025-26 takes a much more conservative view than the previous surveys and bases its findings on analytical methodologies. In addition, the report agrees that tourism is a highly labour-intensive industry and cautions that any future growth within tourism sectors must be done under appropriate environmentally sustainable guidelines, particularly in areas that are susceptible to climate change. In order to achieve sustainable outcomes (i.e., a long-term benefit for human society), the Survey identified three key requirements as essential to achieving sustainability; namely (1) planning for carrying capacities, (2) establishing a decentralised governance structure and (3) community-based involvement.
The 2026 Budget serves as the tool for achieving the higher-level objectives established in the Survey. However, there is some inherent tension between the two different positions represented by the Survey and Budget respectively.
The Way Forward
The Budget makes a significant shift in the tourism policy framework and shows that tourism is linked to activity that is sustainable, and is promoting and accelerating sustainability-based skiing and developing tourism in order that expansion can take place within the confines of nature. To achieve this will require a strong focus on not only how the initiative is implemented but also on whether there are adequate measures in place to limit potential impacts from both climate risks and community-based governance, along with dedicated funding sources intended to support ecological requirements resulting in permanent adverse environmental impacts as we do not know what our carrying capacities are.
The Budget presents a more optimistic view for the future of the mountain ecosystems in India, but will depend on how well the anticipated outcomes of all real-world sustainability initiatives can actually be realized over time, after the policy statements are made.
Vyakhya Jain and Merugu Vinnu are students and Dr Barun Kumar Thakur teaches economics at FLAME University, Pune.
Views are personal.
