Residents of Lamga village at Athang Gewog in Wangdue Phodrang are requesting for a motorable bridge over Pharichhu. According to the locals, the wooden bridge located below their village gets washed away by flood every summer creating transportation problems for the community. The community remains cut off for months every monsoon due to the lack of a reliable motorable bridge over the stream.
Residents of Lamga village have been depending on wooden bridges over Pharichhu for more than five years.
Winter is the only season they can commute comfortably through this bridge. What might appear like an insignificant infrastructure plays an essential role in uplifting the livelihoods of Lamga residents.
The Athang Gewog Administration carries out restoration works on the 60-foot-long bridge at least twice a year incurring huge costs.
The gup says repairing the bridge twice a year costs at least Nu 200,000.
Residents of Lamga village remain cut off for months sometimes when bridge restoration works get delayed. Some of the residents say they have to stock up their ration before the onset of the monsoon.
“The stream looks small today, but every monsoon it causes flashfloods washing away this wooden bridge leaving us in serious trouble. Even last summer, we got cut off from other places for almost one and a half months. The gewog administration does intervene to resolve the problem immediately. The stream washes away the wooden bridge every year,” said Cheten Tshering, a resident of Lamga village.
“If anybody gets sick or dies here in summer, we have to carry them on the backs to get to the other side of the stream. It is such a challenge. The last monsoon, we remained cut off for almost three months,” said Nima Tshering, Lawa-Lamga Tshogpa of Athang Gewog.
The gewog administration once planned to set up a bailey bridge over the stream using old second-hand bridge materials from the Punatsangchhu Hydropower Project. However, the plan couldn’t materialise as the government didn’t allow the use of old materials for bridge construction.
However, the gup says, they will construct a 120-foot-long bailey bridge in the 13th Five Year Plan for which the gewog will require around Nu 7.5 M.
The villagers have been using the bridge since 2018 when the village was first connected with a farm road.
“We will have to use new bridge construction materials now. Since we could not manage the budget from the current five-year plan, we are expecting to complete the construction of a motorable bridge in the first financial year of the 13th Five-Year Plan,” said Dawa Gyeltshen, Athang Gup.
Until a motorable bridge is built, more than 15 households in Lamga will have to continue using temporary wooden bridges that have to be restored every monsoon.
Changa Dorji, Wangdue Phodrang
Edited by Phub Gyem
