Srinagar, Dec 4: Each morning, Kashmir wakes up under a man-made dusk, its roads roaring with machines that keep the economy alive but the Valley breathless.

A booming Rs 964-crore auto industry powers J&K’s coffers, but its fumes now cloud the mountains, trap poison in winter air, and turn the Valley into a year-round gas chamber, an environmental crisis hiding in plain sight on Kashmir roads.

The Valley, especially central Kashmir, is choking on its own breath, with air so laden with particulate matter that even midday looks like dusk.

While the winter chill may sharpen the sting of Kashmir’s air, pollution here isn’t seasonal.

Vehicles – the hundreds of thousands of exhaust-fuming machines – are among the primary causes of the persistent “bad air” in the bowl-shaped Valley.

From th

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