MIRZA, Nov 25 � With stunning beauty supplemented by the undulating hills, Chandubi, by any standards, is ideally suited for sustainable tourism. Flanked by Chagalsari hill and the 5-km technotic lake, the Jaramukhiya forest village under the Loharghat forest has the privilege of witnessing eco-tourism venture with the nod of forest dwellers, obviously in the hope of deriving tourism benefits.
But still in a nascent stage, the bid needs incentives to the satisfaction of tourists of every hue who prefer quenching their travelling thirst by visiting this sequestered site of abundant natural beauties. Insisting on the need of giving boost to the endeavour of Wave, Sarukanta Rabha, the villagehead of Jaramukhiya told this correspondent: �By putting the rare aesthetic view to good use, we cannot only preserve the nature�s gift but stop swelling the rank of unemployed in the tribal belt�.
In great need of sufficient tourism infrastructure, the much favoured destination only kms away from Guwahati needs to be electrified both for tourists� sake as well as for keeping the herd of crop raiders away from the cultivated plots of land.
Also, the half km-long lane, which is branching right to the Chandubi-based tourist lodge from arterial Mirza-Chandubi raod, nees to be repaired. More importantly, the serpentine passage about 2 km in length that runs through Barduar RF is in need of being made smoother.
Meanwhile, the fall in number of visitors to the newly constructed eco camp is reportedly due the concept of vegetarianism. Driving home the point of non-vegetarianism, the villagers are of the view, �Most of the visitors are against the idea of being vegetarian while coming to pamper themselves�. What is heartening to note is that the villagers are not in favour of taking liquor in fear of the likelihood of drinking bout. Environmentally aware inhabitants while interacting with this correspondent have made ardent appeal not to bring plasticmade items which are detrimental to the ecology.
Leaving anything other than footmark is against the one of the commandments of eco tourism, issued by American Society of Travel Agency and Club Med.
From the conservation point of view, the aquatic health of this rich reservoir of living organisms should not be impaired as productivity of aquatic eco-system based on soil and water is more than the forest eco-system.
Pining for the glorious past, the wetland, flood storage level of which has already suffered with the receding of the depth needs to be preserved for posterity. Range officer, Subodh Talukdar has equally been emphatic on exploiting the enormous tourism potential for the sake of the forest dwellers welfare. According to him if tourism benefits are realised by the forest dwelling community, official bid for conservation of forest yields the desired result.
