Mugu eyes tourism potential as it takes first step on road to prosperity

MUGU:

After around 10 hours of gruelling walk, Prem Bahadur Shahi of Topla village in Mugu district, reached Chyare Chaur in Jumla district.

That was back in 2003, when the Maoist insurgency was at its peak. Yet he was not concerned about the risk of trudging the dirt tracks of the district — known back then as one of the hotbeds of Maoists — as thoughts of questions that would appear in the exams was rattling his head.

After completing higher secondary education in Mugu, Shahi enrolled in Shiksha Campus of Jumla to pursue Bachelor’s in Education, as there was no institution for higher studies in his remote and poor district, which was not even connected to national road network at that time.

“It was my father’s wish that I give continuity to my studies, no matter what,” said a medium-built Shahi, who is now 33 years old. But since his family was not well off, he could not afford to stay in Jumla until he completed his studies.

“So I decided to travel to Jumla Bazaar whenever there were examinations,” said Shahi, who was travelling to attend first year BEd exams at that time.

Unexpected turn

But as he reached Chyare Chaur, a group of Maoists circled him and his friend, Suresh Bista, who was accompanying him. The rebels then roughed the duo up, robbed Shah’s Rs 12,000 and asked them to return home.

“I had no option but to oblige,” said Shah.

His dream of pursuing BEd was, thus, nipped in the bud.

“At that time, I had a feeling that I’d never be able to complete Bachelor’s degree because my father had just died and the financial condition of my family was deteriorating,” said Shahi. “Also, my brother and sister-in-law had separated from the family and migrated to district headquarters, Gamgadi, leaving the responsibility of handling family affairs on my shoulders.”

Though unhappy, Shahi was learning to cope with the situation.

“I spent my days working in the field as usual, growing millet, barley and potatoes ... It was basically subsistence farming, so the work I was doing was barely enough to earn two meals a day,” Shahi said.

As the days passed by, the wounds that he had received from Maoists’ thrashing started troubling him.

“The back pain was so annoying, I couldn’t do any work,” said Shahi, who then sold a plot of land for Rs 52,000 and headed towards Surkhet to seek treatment.

After recovering, he was about to return back to his village when an advertisement caught his eye. It was from a campus in Surkhet, which was accepting students for first year BEd programme.

A new beginning

“I only had Rs 4,225 with me at that time, which I had saved to buy return air ticket. But I was so fascinated by the idea of getting enrolled in the college that I spent Rs 3,600 to get admitted.”

He then had only Rs 625 left in his pocket, which was not enough to return home. So, instead of going home, he boarded a bus for Nepalgunj, where his sister and brother-in-law were based.

“There I met an uncle, who used to frequent India to do menial jobs,” Shahi said. “When I reached there, he was about to leave for India”

Since Shahi had already signed up for bachelor’s level programme, but lacked financial resources to meet the college expenses, he decided accompany his uncle.

“I then started doing menial jobs in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand State. And in four months, I saved IRs 13,200,” he said.

With this money, he returned back to Surkhet, rented a room and started attending campus. But what he had earned in India was not enough to cover his college expenses.

“I then borrowed Rs 100,000 from my sister and asked my mother and wife to arrange for another Rs 125,000, which they did by pawning our village land,” Shahi said.

Finally, he completed his Bachelor’s degree.

But by that time he was knee deep in debt and didn’t know how to pay it off, as he wasn’t finding ‘good job opportunities’.

Opportunity calling

Then in 2009, the Department of Local Infrastructure and Agriculture Roads implemented a project called the Decentralised Rural Infrastructure and Livelihood Project (DRILP) through the support of the Asian Development Bank.

The project was initially implemented in fiscal year 2005-06 in 18 districts, including Mugu, at an estimated cost of $62.3 million, of which $40 million was mobilised by the ADB.

It basically focused on community development and restoration of rural livelihood, building capacity to promote decentralised governance, development of rural transport infrastructure and extending support for project implementation.

After its successful completion in fiscal 2010-11, the ADB agreed to give continuity to the project, which was later renamed to DRLIP-Additional Financing (AF), and pledged to pour another $134.75 million.

One of the sub components of the project was to develop a 16-km road to link Gamgadi-Talcha-Rara Lake using local labourers and construction materials.

Shah grabbed this opportunity and teamed up with several of his friends to acquire small contracts to build certain segments of the road, crush stones, build retaining walls and transport barbed wires, among others.

“By the time the track’s construction was complete, I had earned around Rs 450,000, which I used to settle the debt. I also used my savings and money earned from the project to build a new house with concrete pillars,” said Shah, who is now a father of two sons and a daughter.

Like Shah, many others benefited from the project.

Sri Chandra Rawal, 68, of Srinagar village, for instance, earned around Rs 55,000 by working in the project site, while Ram Datta Rawal, 42, took home Rs 40,000 to Rs 50,000. Rawal used his earnings to admit his grandson in an English-medium school, while Rawal used the savings to build a new house.

Trickle-down effect

While these were the benefits reaped by locals during the construction phase — most of which was spent in consumption — other benefits of the project are gradually trickling down in the locality of Gamgadi, the district headquarters.

First, the track, built at a cost of Rs 140 million, has linked Gamgadi with Karnali Highway, enabling locals to reach urban centres like Nepalgunj within three days, as against a week in the past. These days, people also need not necessarily walk to their destinations, including schools, which saves time and allows people to focus on other activities.

For instance, journey from Gamgadi to Talcha, can now be made in an hour on trucks and tractors that ply on the road, as against around three hours on foot through the hills in the past.

The road has also provided easier access to bigger marketplaces like Surkhet and Nepalgunj, where villagers have started selling products like beans, barley, radishes and apples. This connectivity has prompted several locals to grow vegetables at semi-commercial level — which was unimaginable until some years ago because of the short shelf life of these green products.

What more, the construction of the road has also compelled helicopter companies to become competitive, as they have reduced cargo fare from Rs 120 per kg to around Rs 60 to Rs 65 per kg, according to Shahi. “Hopefully, other transport fares will also come down in the days to come.”

Clearly, villagers here are on the path to prosperity, noted Shailendra Shah, district programme officer of DRILP-AF, who has been working in the district for the last seven years.

Probably that’s the reason why, new houses, with concrete pillars — something which many villagers had never seen — have started sprouting here, while real estate prices are going up.

“Now, I only wish we could attract more tourists so that more jobs and self-employment opportunities could be created,” said Shahi.

This district does hold tourism potential as it home to pristine Rara Lake and ideal trekking routes. It is now up to the local and central authorities to sketch a plan to exploit this potential, so that the benefit of the road could be further reaped.

SOurce: THT