The people in Norbugang Gewog in Samtse have denied public clearance for dredging Diana and Dipu River in the gewog. During the consultation meeting, today, the public insisted that four plots from the eight allotted plots should be kept for the community contractors. But the meeting could not come to a consensus on this and thus public clearance was kept on hold.
About 145 acres have been identified along the Diana and Dipu Rivers and were divided into eight plots to carry out river dredging works. The Department of Forests and Park Services called for applications earlier this month on a first come first serve basis.
Today, at the public consultation meeting, about 100 people from the gewog along with 38 contractors who have applied for public clearance with the gewog administration met to discuss the matter. However, the public remained adamant that if four plots were not kept for community contractors, they would not give public clearance.
“I have explained to the people how this works will benefit the country economically and how it will benefit our community. But the people do not want to give to other contractors if their local contractors do not get,” said Kinga Wangdi, the Norbugang Gup.
The forest range office representative explained to the public that it is not in their hand, neither anyone in the dzongkhag level to decide whether to reserve the plots for community contractors.
“They can keep four plots if they have the ownership of that particular land but we are talking about government land here. They don’t have that right. Even the contractors are not listening to this idea since they have to work equally. They have to follow the same procedure,” informed Sonam Zangpo, a Forester at Norbugang Range Office in Samtse.
One of the contractors even said that he would pull out his application if the plots were divided among the community and the contractors. The gup says dredging works needs to be done even if the public clearance consultation failed today.
“The gewog administration will have to intervene. We will report to the dzongkhag administration and the government to find new ideas. Maybe an idea could be to reduce the number of acres per plot so that the community people will directly benefit. Right now it is 18 acres per plot. So, we will continue working on this,” added Norbugang Gup.
A total of 21 new sites have been identified across three districts for river dredging works among which, 12 are in Samtse.
Sherub Dorji
