Woes of people of Namsang Tea Estate and Puberun village
A CORRESPONDENT
NAHARKATIA: Namsang Tea Estate under the Naharkatia Constituency No.120, is situated adjacent to the Dehing Patkai National Park. One can go there by entering through the main entrance of Dehing Patkai National Park and by travelling about 11 km through the heart of the National Park. Adjacent to the Namsang Tea Estate lies a village named Puberun where construction of the PMAY-G colony has been going on under the supervision of the Joypur Gaon Panchayat under Joypur Development Block.
The people of Namsang Tea Estate and Puberun village have been facing a lot of hardships, which the government authorities as well as the public representatives have been allegedly ignoring. Though promises were made for the area’s development, it has not been fulfilled. Even after 76 years of Independence, the people of Namsang Tea Estate and Puberun village have been deprived of electricity and Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana – Saubhagya launched by the Prime Minister of India has not been implemented here.
On June 14, 2023, on behalf of all the people of Namsang Tea Estate, Sagar Tanti and the All Tea Tribes Students’ Association (ATTSA), Naharkatia branch submitted two separate memoranda to the Chief Minister of Assam through the Deputy Commissioner of Dibrugarh, Biswajit Pegu, urging for domestic connection of electricity along with a transformer for the people of Namsang. But no action has been taken in this regard as yet. Moreover, the Assam Power Distribution Company Limited (APDCL) facilitated electricity connection from Arunachal Pradesh for Namsang Tea Estate but it has been limited only to the tea factory and management and not for the common people. Now, the question arises whether the people of Namsang and Puberun village will benefit from the decision taken in the Assam Cabinet meeting held on August 2, 2023, of 100% electrification in all villages of Assam.
For the development of education among the people of Namsang Tea Estate and Puberun village, the MLA of Naharkatia constituency, Taranga Gogoi inaugurated a model school on May 27, 2022 but the infrastructure of the school was so weak that the building collapsed to a certain extent within months of its inauguration and is now in a poor condition.
The human-elephant conflict has assumed an alarming proportion in neighbouring villages of Dehing Patkai National Park, Joypur Range, due to the widespread destruction of forest land. This has raised an alarm in the adjacent Namsang Tea Estate as well as Puberun village as people cannot build permanent houses. Environmentalist Mridupaban Phukan said that the place where the Assam Government is building the PMAY-G colony falls under the elephant corridor. The elephants move from the Joypur Range of Dibrugarh Division to Soraipung Range of Digboi Division through the Burhi Dehing River and vise-versa. But the under-construction PMAY-G colony has restrained the elephants from following the path, which has forced the elephants to enter Puberun village resulting in human-elephant conflicts and destruction of properties of the villagers. A few deaths have also been reported.
Phukan said that the construction of the PMAY-G colony in the elephant corridor was a wrong decision. He said that there is a possibility that the PMAY-G colony, which has been constructed adjacent to the Dehing Patkai National Park by utilizing a huge amount of money by the Joypur Development Block in the elephant corridor, may be destroyed by the elephants in the near future. He expressed fear that the human-elephant conflict would only escalate in the coming days and for this, he said, the elephants cannot be held liable.
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