Sikkim: Road Connectivity Still Remains an Elusive Dream for Dzongu Villages

For 8,000 people who live in the Dzongu region, any interaction with the outside world means a journey on foot for several kilometres through treacherous terrain. 

From L to R: Non-motorable bridge connecting Mantam to rest of Sikkim; bamboo bridge connecting Pentong to outside world; a close up shot of Mantam bridge. The state of roads in Dzongu region of Sikkim is miserable. Photo: By arrangement.

E.K. Santha, 28 NOV 2021, Gangtok (Sikkim): It has been a decade since the earth caved in and Sikkim, especially North Sikkim, was affected severely in terms of infrastructural damages.

Until September 2011, the 32 families of Pentong, the last village of Upper Dzongu, had access through a narrow road, just motorable, to a concrete bridge that connected Pentong with Bay and to the rest of Sikkim and the world.

Dzongu is a reserved area for the indigenous Lepcha people. The ‘reserved’ status is meant to protect their language, culture and way of life. Around 8,000 people who live in this region practice their own unique traditional and sustainable way of living, remaining closely connected with nature.

Years of neglect

In September 2011, the only bridge that connected Bay to Pentong as well as the famous Tholung monastery, which is situated in the remote wilderness of Dzongu, was broken by the boulders that fell due to the earthquake. In the days after the September 19 earthquake, a makeshift bamboo bridge was built across the raging Tholung river. Multiple landslides in a couple of places en route to Pentong made it unmotorable, so the people from the village are left with no options other than trekking through the village road to Bay.

This has been the reality for the past 10 years. The bridge connecting Pentong with Bay was never rebuilt. The vehicles which were there in the evening before the quake on the far side of the Tholung river are seen abandoned as the motorable road disappeared at places, as the connection in the form of bridge never became a reality.

Pentong village. Photo: By arrangement.

A visit to Pentong village exposes us to the vulnerabilities of the people who live there. Though the villagers produce vegetables they need to meet their needs (and also to sell in the markets across the Tholung), they have to go to Mangan, the district headquarters of North Sikkim, for many other things necessary for their lives.

Mangan is very far in terms of accessibility. To reach Mangan, the villagers have to trek to Bay, cross the Tholung river balancing whatever they carry for trade on their back or on their head. From Bay, only a jeep service is available per day, which is unpredictable too. So they trek to the next village, Linjam, five kilometres away on their way. These paths are infested with leeches during the rainy season (which is most of the year) and it is very normal to see bloodstains on their clothes. From Linjam, taxis are available, though not many and not available at beck and call.

From Linjam they reach Mantam, the next bottleneck. A cloudburst in 2016 that was followed by a massive landslide not only created an artificial lake in the area but also wiped out the bridge across the river, the only way to cross the river to Mantam. A temporary hanging foot-over bridge was built over the river connecting 10 villages: Pentong, Sakyong, Bayl, Lingam, Tingvong, Linko, Kusong, Payal, Namprik, Nung and Mantamto Mangan. This bridge also connected these villages to the only functioning health centre in Lingtem.

One of the villagers said that this present hanging bridge itself was a new one. Earlier, a temporary bridge had been built with bamboo and it was too low, as a result, water in the river used to touch their feet while crossing the river, and during the monsoon it became dysfunctional.

The villager in question told us this interesting story of a man who was crossing this makeshift bridge carrying a sack of rice on the back and a crate of beer on the head. When he lost his balance, he had to quickly decide which one to forgo, so he decided to give up the sack of rice.

There are quite impressive health centres built in almost all the villages, but it remains unused for want of doctors or other medical facilities. A doctor is supposed to visit the centres once a month, but it never happens that way. Doctors visit twice a year at best, the villagers say. The building only helped the contractors who built it.

The nearest health centre which has a residential doctor is at Passington, Lingam, which is three to five hours of a trek for many villagers who live beyond Mantam. The non-existence of a motorable bridge to go to the primary health centre (PHC) adds to the miseries of people suffering from ailments. This PHC at Passington too suffers from the irregular supply of medicines and inadequate facilities.

That’s the reason people prefer to go to the district hospital at Mangan. The condition of this district hospital is depressingly poor as far as testing facilities, etc., are concerned. Those who have better transportation take the ailing and their families to Gangtok, the capital.

In Pentong village, the lady at the Homestay where we stayed told us that she had just returned from Mangan hospital where her infant son was admitted with a high fever. They had to carry the baby by foot for about 12 kilometres, daring the treacherous path and a bamboo bridge and many further kilometres in a shared taxi to get medical care for their infant. The journey that began early in the morning ended in the evening.

She also told that she was no longer interested in growing potatoes as she had to carry a huge sack of potatoes to the market which is far away. Instead, she began cultivating dalle, Sikkim’s own proud contribution to the world of chilies. A two-kilogram packet of dalle can fetch up to Rs 1,000 while she would have to lug, on foot, with a sack of potatoes to earn that money.

Carrying anything heavy is a difficult task in the region due to the lack of proper connectivity and accessibility. One such almost impossible task is reaching cooking gas from the respective depots to homes. They do use firewood for cooking, but gas stoves are also used in cooking. Interestingly, there are no agencies that distribute cooking gas to these areas. The villagers have to reach Mangan which is a good 20 to 25 kilometres from these villages to collect their cooking gas while carrying the empty cylinders for returning.

Indifferent administration 

Normal logistics are as follows: Mangan to Lingam, people travel in a shared-taxi, then cross the hanging bridge carrying the gas cylinder on their backs, which is a balancing act, and then wait for another shared-jeep, which takes them to a respective point and then walk from there to their respective villages.

A friend who lives in this region narrated a harrowing story of carrying the corpse of his cousin through this hanging bridge. The person who passed away at Lingthem Health Centre had to be carried through the 200 metre hanging bridge on a stretcher. The bridge kept swaying and they could not hold anywhere in order to keep their balance. They thought it was a never-ending act.

It is so unfortunate that in the past 10 years or so the government has not taken any effort to rebuild the bridge connecting the Bay with the last village of the Upper Dzongu, Pentong and Tholung Monastery where the relics and the valuable Buddhist calligraphies are kept. The same is the unfortunate reality with the non-construction of a motorable bridge on Teesta River at Mantam.

Almost 10 villages across the river have suffered incredibly due to this carefree attitude of the government since 2016. There have been proposals to construct a new bridge but it has not materialised so far. The government did construct a bailey bridge in 2020, but it was washed away in the next monsoon. The present pedestrian steel suspension bridge was constructed after that.

The colossal landslide itself which the locals attribute to the two massive hydroelectric projects in Dikchu, a stage V project (500mw) by the National Hydel Power Corporation (NHPC). It is built between Dzongu and Dichu. Due to this project, the lower part of the Dzongu suffered considerably. Landslides and river breaches became a normal phenomenon during the monsoon since the project was implemented. The Stage 3 Project at Chumthang too had huge ecological repercussions for the whole region. Tunneling contributed to landslides in the fragile Himalayan region.

A total of six projects have been proposed to be built here. Four of them have been scrapped, and two are suspended due to the protests. However, now the government is reviving the two suspended projects despite the protests.

The Dzongu region also happens to be a biodiversity hotspot. The indigenous people of Dzongu, especially the new generation have taken over the protest, against this move.

This clearly indicates that the development concerns of the government of Sikkim lie elsewhere.

E. K. Santha teaches at SRM University, Sikkim and is the author of Democracy in Sikkim: An Untold Chronicle.