Tshothang Chiwog in Lauri Gewog, Samdrup Jongkhar still doesn’t have a Tshogpa. It’s been seven years now.
In the absence of a Tshogpa, the villagers as well as the gewog office are faced with numerous problems.
The Zangthig Chiwog Tshogpa has been shouldering an additional responsibility of serving the people of Tshothang.
However, owing to the distance between the two chiwogs, it’s been a daunting task for the Zangthig Chiwog Tshogpa to provide satisfactory service.
Tshothang is almost two hours walk from Zangthig.
“Whenever officials visit here, we face problems without a Tshogpa.For chiwog development, we need Tshogpa to seek budget and all,” Karma Dorji from Tshothang said.
“We need the sign of Tshogpa for birth registration, loan and many more. Without a Tshogpa, we face many problems,” he added.
According to the gewog authorities, most of the villagers in Tshothang are lay monks. This, Lauri Gewog Mangmi Tenzin said, is one of the reasons why there were no Tshogpa candidates during both the first and second local government elections.
The Samdrup Jongkhar Dzongkhag election office had even called a bye-election to fill the vacant post but no one came forward to contest.
The chiwog will have to wait until the next local government election scheduled in 2021 to get a Tshogpa.
Tshothang is home to about 60 households and almost a day’s walk from the gewog centre. It is the most remote chiwog in Samdrup Jongkhar and shares a border with the Indian State of Arunachal Pradesh.
