Residents of Damzhagsa in Samtse either travel far to grind maize or resort to the conventional way despite having a maize mill in their village. The mill installed more than six years ago remains idle. It was provided through the Remote Rural Communities Development Project of the agriculture ministry.
Installed in 2015, time hasn’t been kind to the machine. Most of its parts has started to rust. A few parts are also damaged. This was not what they hoped for. They said all the 85 households of the village contributed labour during the construction looking forward to having their own mill.
“The gewog and the government gave us the mill but it has hardly served its purpose,” a farmer said.
With maize being one of the staple food crops in the village, residents are struggling to grind the corn today.
According to residents, they used to travel to Chengmari to grind corns and paddy before the pandemic. However, travel today is no more easy due to the pandemic.
“We are now stuck with the old method of grinding maize and paddy, which is very difficult,” said a farmer.
The Gewog Administration recently conducted an assessment concerning the matter. As per the assessment report, the reason for the machine to remain idle was due to its power line. The current machine can only be operated with a three-phase power line which is not available in Damzhagsa village for now. Most of the villages are connected with a single-phase power line since a three-phase line is only used directly to power large motors and heavy machines. Moreover, the report claimed that the residents did not report the matter to the gewog.
The maize mill however is expected to be functional soon. The gewog administration has submitted a detailed report to the Dzongkhag Agriculture Sector and will seek technical support from the Agriculture Machinery Centre in Paro.
Passang Dorji, Samtse
Edited by Sonam
