The heavy rainfall causing landslides, flash floods and roadblocks is now hampering the sale of Om Nyamley Tshogpa, a milk group in Gomdar Gewog, Samdrup Jongkhar. With the gewog center road blocked for more than two weeks, the milk group was not able to transport their milk to Samdrup Jongkhar town for sale.
The group has 215 members and selling milk is the main source of income for them. They sell about 650 liters of fresh milk to Samdrup Jongkhar town daily. But in the span of two weeks, they haven’t been able to transport their produce at all.
“By selling milk, the group makes a profit of Nu 800,000 in a month, it has been 16 days with heavy rain and roadblocks, so for 16 days the loss is about Nu 400,000 when calculated, and if it continues like that we may run in the loss for more than that. Villagers had bought jersey cows by availing loan from Bhutan Development Bank and they sell milk to pay back and at the same time they also make some income, so I think the loss will be huge,” said Lungten Wangdi, the chairperson of Om Nyamley Tshogpa in Gomdar Gewog.
“With the heavy rain we are facing many problems in Gomdar Gewog, and members of om Nyamley Tshogpa are facing the most as we are not able to take the milk to the market. Some members earn Nu 20,000 and some a minimum of Nu 9000 to 10000 in a month by selling milk which helps us to repay our loans, but this time we are very worried,” added Sonam Zangpo, a member of the milk group.
The milk group tried to make butter and cheese from the stored milk, which could not be transported to the market, but it could not be sold with fewer buyers in the gewog.
Officials from Department of Roads in Samdrup Jongkhar has cleared the roadblocks once in the evening of 21 July but yesterday when the milk group tried to transport milk to Samdrup Jongkhar town, the heavy rain caused a flash flood along the roads which damaged their marketing van too.
Officials from the Roads said that they are trying to clear the blocks as soon as possible but continuous rain hampers the clearing works and rains causes roadblocks now and then.
