Look, there is the rock and there is no ugly ad

When the Rohtang pass opens to the public next week, the casual traveller will be granted a simple pleasure denied for years: Click a picture of the scenic Beas and the snowy Himalayas, with unspoilt rocks rising along the side of the mountain.

The rape of the rock—which had been assaulted by advertisements of Coke, Pepsi, MBD Books, among others—is over, the healing almost complete.

The occasional white patch on the otherwise clean rock face is the only reminder of the days when coats of paint in garish colours over-ran these mountain sides. Some of the damage to these ecosystems—the moss and micro organisms date back 45 million years—was irreparable but experts have salvaged whatever they could.

After the first story of companies defacing ancient rock faces appeared in The Sunday Express in August two years ago, it was followed by a campaign called the ‘Rape of the Rock’.

Within two months, the Supreme Court imposed a fine on these companies and directed a team of specialists to clean the mess. Today, 90 per cent of the work is complete. The three-member team plans to wrap up the remaining work soon. In two seasons, they have cleaned up nearly 1,000 big and small rocks, spending just 30 per cent of the total money that was collected as fine. The rest will be spent on conservation work in the area that is starved for funds.

‘‘We avoided expensive techniques like laser and grinding. Instead we just relied on the right blend of chemicals,’’ said O P Agarwal, director-general of the Indian Council of Conservation Institute that had been entrusted with the clean-up. Each offending company had used a different mix of paints and required a different antidote.

The team worked through last summer into November last year when the snow started covering all the slopes. For once, for a project of this nature, money was not a problem. The Court, enraged by the reports in The Indian Express, asked for a corpus of Rs 5 crore to be created. The Himachal Pradesh government was asked to pay Rs 1 crore, MBD and Coca Cola Rs 30 lakh each, Pepsi Rs 15 lakh. The others told to chip in were were Grasim, Fena, Amaron Batteries, Sleepwell and State Bank of India.

This particular project was estimated to cost Rs 178 lakh. The Central Empowered Committee, set up by the Supreme Court to look into all forest-related cases, estimated that 180 sites had suffered irreparable damage.

Now a member of the committee said that they would be going to the Court with a plan to use the remaining money for conservation measures.

Meanwhile, the local authorities are satisfied with the job well done. ‘‘This is not just about cleaning the rocks but it has created a lot of awareness about not tampering with nature,’’ said Vineet Kumar, Conservator of Forests (Kullu).