STAFF CORRESPONDENT
SHILLONG, Nov 29: Scores of tourist are now descending to Dawki, a small town located along the Meghalaya stretch of Indo Bangladesh border, to enjoy its beautiful landscape and boating in the crystal clear water of Umngot river.
However, the welcome received by these visitors in the form of a treacherous road, especially in the last 7/8 km of the journey before reaching the town, is not going down well with most of them. Most of the tourists that this correspondent interacted with on Wednesday had almost the same complaint – pathetic road condition.
Anja Matonkar, a 68-year-old woman from Maharashtra, said, “I enjoyed every bit of the boating in the serene water and the countryside, but I am worried about my back for having to go back to Shillong via the same bumpy road.”
That speaks all by itself about the horrendous condition of the road from Mawriang to Dawki, where hundreds of tourists are flocking to the area each day.
Interestingly, this border town is also the official gateway for Bangladeshi travelers to enter India through Meghalaya.
A Bangladesh tourist with valid documents also said that he was shocked to experience such a road journey, especially the first few kilometers of drive, after entering India.
“The drive from the side of my country (Sylhet to Tamabil) was better than what I had encountered upon entering India,” stated the Bangladeshi tiol on condition of anonymity, even as he mentioned that Shillong and Guwahati are the two places where people from Bangladesh frequently visited for a vacation. Such Bangladeshi tourists are mostly from Sylhet and Sumganj districts, besides Dhaka, he informed The Sentinel.
The local population is also fed up with the pathetic road condition. They said the single-lane road has been uttended for years on end, for which it condition has deteriorated and reached such a pass. Tourist guides-cum-boatmen by the banks of Umngot river echo similar views. “We are doing good business through the inflow of tourist, but I have no answer to their question on the poor road condition,” said one of the members of the society that runs the boating trade in the river that later enters Bangladesh.
Even Border Security Force officials admitted in private that the pathetic condition of the strategic road hampers the force in moving men and materials properly.