Why a section of Sikkim’s Dzongu residents have been waiting 10 years for a bridge to the world

“Before the landslide, we didn't have to think twice before travelling. It was so easy. We could drive all the way home. Now, it is a different story. There are too many transport changes, transfers and connecting roads involved in the simplest of journeys,” rued Naykit Lepcha, a resident of Tingvong, one of the villages across the Rongyoung Kyoung river, cut off by the 2016 landslide.

Naykit, who works at one of the integrated child development centres (ICDC) in her village, was not home at the time of the landslide. Then a student of the West Point Senior Secondary School in Sikkim’s capital city, Gangtok, she had been staying at a relative’s house in town. Without even regular telephone conversations with her parents at the time, she only vaguely heard that “something had happened”, but only became aware of the full impact of the catastrophe when she visited home the next holiday. And found that she now had to cross a lake, created when the landslide blocked the Rongyoung Kyoung’s course in Mantam, on a raft to reach home.

“It was scary. It was the first time I had ever been on a raft,” she recalled

The lake has since silted over and rafts no longer ferry people across, but crossing the Rongyoung Kyoung remains arduous. People now have to negotiate a swaying metal bridge, at Mantam, almost at the same spot where the old motorable bridge had been, on foot, while the new motorable bridge, being constructed a little higher up the river, remains incomplete nearly ten years after it was started.

Tingvong is the first village across the Rongyoung Kyoung, isolated by the collapse of the Mantam bridge. Beyond it, the other 10 villages are even more remote. When The Federal visited the area in monsoon, a roadblock restricted further travel to these villages.

Dzongu, a reserved area for Sikkim’s Lepcha population, has always lived under the shadow of disasters. A 6.9 magnitude earthquake in 2011 had left 71 dead across Sikkim and cut off parts of Dzongu from the rest of the world. While connectivity was later restored, the 2016 Shyok Bhir landslide left a deeper and more lingering impact. The situation was made worse by a glacial outburst flood (GLOF) in 2023, which swept away two important bridges in Dzongu — the Phidang bridge and the Sangkalang bridge. While the first connected the area to the small town of Dikchu, which marks the border between east and north Sikkim, the second connected Dzongu to the North District headquarter town of Mangan.

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For residents, the price of disconnection has been steep indeed. The worst of it has been the lack of access to healthcare facilities, they say. Naykit’s mother, Ongkit Lepcha, recalls that two women and a monk at the Tholung monastery had lost their lives in the past two-three years because they couldn’t reach medical facilities in time. “He had to be carried on someone’s back from the monastery, but passed away while they were crossing the Mantam footbridge,” said Ongkit. Another resident, Sonam Ongmu Lepcha, added a guard working at the monastery, Pema Chopel Lepcha, too, couldn’t be saved after falling ill last year. “They took him to the Passingdang PHC [public health centre], but he had already died on the way. It was around September when it happened," she recalled. Neither Ongkit nor Sonam shared details of the illnesses that killed these people, only that they lost their lives even before they could reach medical help.

While Tingvong has a health and wellness centre, for any serious ailment, villagers have to visit the PHC at Passingdang PHC, across the Rongyoung Kyoung river. The shortest route is across the footbridge, but the journey can still take about an hour. The nearest district hospital is at Mangan, which is another 45 minutes to an hour away from Passingdang.

Then there is the additional expenditure on sourcing even essentials.

“Everything is more expensive for us. Dalda [palm oil] that we use for prayer lamps is Rs 180 in Gangtok and here it is Rs 200 for a packet,” said Naykit.

According to Dzongu residents, a porter charges Rs 100 for every load carried across the footbridge, irrespective of size or weight.

A sack of rice may cost Rs 1600-1700 in Mangan, but by the time it reaches Tingvong, the cost goes up to Rs 2200, claims Nakchi Lepcha, a teacher.

The absence of the Mantam motorable bridge is not the only problem complicating commute and access to supplies here, however. In remote Dzongu, roads are often not in the best of conditions and transportation limited, claim residents. Already battling the challenge of the missing Mantam bridge, following the 2023 GLOF, and till the use of Phidang and Sangkalang bridges were restored recently, villagers had to face connectivity issues even in those areas.

Sonam Ongmu was one of the lucky ones in Mantam, whose house was not damaged in the 2016 landslide. While the village is on the other side of the Rongyoung Kyoung, and therefore not cut off like Tingvong by the destruction of the Mantam bridge, it was hit as badly in the landslide, with only a handful of houses remaining. But Sonam continues to live in her old house, running a ration shop in Passingdang, which also caters to those from Tingvong, who have to cross the Mantam footbridge to reach the store.

She mostly orders supplies for the store from Mangan or Singtam, paying the transportation cost of Rs 1,500. And while access to her shop is not restricted to the Mantam footbridge, after the Sangkalang bridge was washed away in the 2023 GLOF and till its operations were restored in August, she too had to pay additional porter charge for the supplies to be carried to her shop.

“Everything becomes expensive by the time it reaches here. A packet of Wai Wai, which costs Rs 12 in Gangtok, will cost Rs 15 and sometimes Rs 20 by the time it reaches Tingvong,” she claimed.

The costs of disconnection are many and pervasive and felt by almost everyone in the area.

For Santosh Rai, a taxi driver catering to residents of Tingvong and surrounding villages, a simple punctured tyre comes with a close to Rs 1,000 bill. “It has to be taken to Mangan to be fixed and if you calculate the fare to and fro [across the circuitous route in the absence of the Mantam motorable bridge], the cost comes to nearly Rs 1,000,” he said.

The lack of proper connectivity not only impacts the flow of goods into Dzongu, but also the taking out of the agricultural produce from the villages. While residents say none of the families in the area are dependent on earnings from agricultural produce alone, shipments to Mangan, and at times Gangtok, have been completely stopped owing to the steep carriage cost since the original bridge was lost in the 2016 landslide.

“A lot of vegetables are now fodder for the livestock since we cannot send it to Gangtok or Mangan,” said Nimden Lepcha, a Tingvong resident.

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The National Projects Construction Corporation (NPCC), tasked with building the new Mantam bridge, had reportedly given the construction tender to Mohindra Tubes Limited, a company based in Siliguri, West Bengal. The project, to be completed by 2021, was to be built at an estimated budget of approximately Rs 88 crore.

In 2022, Minister of Roads & Bridges Department, Samdup Lepcha, while replying to a question from MLA, Pintso Namgyal Lepcha in the state assembly, had claimed that 70 per cent of work on the bridge had been completed and Rs 62.41 crore payment had been made till date.

“NPCC has terminated its contract with Mohindra Tubes because of non-performance and has drawn fresh bids for the project,” said additional chief engineer [planning] of the state roads and bridges department, Digvijay Sharma.

According to information provided on the NPCC website, the tender for balance work on the bridge costing Rs 37.41 crore has been awarded to a company named EPC Infracon Private Limited.

"The project cost has gone up by Rs 8-9 crore [owing to the delay in completion]," additional chief engineer-I of the state roads and bridges department, Divya Gurung, told The Federal.

Meanwhile, the smaller, “alternative” bridge constructed at Lingzya, around 8 km from Mantam, was inaugurated in August this year.

“The new bridge is too far and impractical. Accessing it is also too costly for us. The road to this bridge is even worse [than that to the Mantam footbridge],” alleged Naykit.

Lingzya is an hour-and-a-half away from Mantam. For Tingvong residents, for example, reaching the Mantam bridge would cost Rs 1500 for a reserved taxi; there are no shared-cabs on this stretch. Most prefer to walk the distance. To take the Lingzya bridge, residents would have to cover another 8 kms on foot, or pay another Rs 1,000 to 1,500 for a taxi ride. To reach Mangan, or Gangtok, after crossing the bridge, a shared cab charges Rs 120-150 per person, while a reserved cab costs upwards of Rs 500.

Namgyal Lepcha, a conservationist and founding president of the Mutanchi Lom Aal Shezum, an organisation which works towards conserving Lepcha culture and traditions, alleged, “The roads made during the Chogyal’s [erstwhile King of Sikkim, the reign of the last king ended in the 1970s] time are just how they were. There has hardly been any progress. I grew up seeing these broken roads, and it seems like I will not get to see them smooth or repaired properly in my lifetime,” fretted the 62-year-old.

His concerns about the roads are echoed by Gyatso Lepcha, an environmental activist and social entrepreneur from Passingdang. “I don’t understand why they had to make this [Lingzya] bridge in a hurry when the roads connecting the bridge are in such poor condition that it makes access almost impossible,” he said. While Gyatso conceded that Lingzya bridge could have been beneficial, the journey to it took far too long for it to be of any real help, he explained.

The authorities are aware of the problems.

Gurung admitted that the road towards Lingzya was black-topped only in patches. “Our aim was to make this bridge available to the public till the bigger Mantam bridge is completed,” he said.

The work of the roads and bridges construction agencies are also made difficult because of the poor connectivity, especially following the destruction of the Phidang and Sangkalang bridges in the 2023 GLOF.

“There were several challenges in constructing the Mantam bridge. With the Sangkalang and Phidang bridges gone in the GLOF, construction material couldn’t be transported to the site,” Gurung shared.

Even after the Phidang bridge was re-constructed, the poor terrain and poorer roads after crossing it made it impossible for trucks to use this route to reach construction material to Mantam. Since Sangkalang is nearer to Mantam, it's easier to use that bridge, but there was only a footbridge at Sangkalang after the GLOF till recently, Gurung explained. Even prior to the GLOF, the restricted load-bearing capacity of the Sangkalang bridge made it difficult to transport heavy materials needed for bridge construction, claimed Gurung.

“The steel, for example, has to be brought from Kolkata. We had to load it onto smaller trucks in Siliguri for it to be transported to Sikkim. At Sangkalang, it had to be shifted onto even smaller trucks,” he said, adding that pre-fabricated parts which could not be dismantled posed a special challenge. “Constructing a bridge in the mountains is not the same as constructing one in the plains,” he added.

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If construction in remote Dongzu is a daunting task for the public works authorities, the challenges are amplified manifold for individuals in need of private repair or reconstruction of properties.

Nakchi Lepcha cites ongoing construction work at his house.

“All construction work has to stop during the monsoon because bringing materials across the footbridge becomes too costly and impractical. If a bag of cement costs Rs 600 in Mangan, by the time it reaches Tingvong it can cost up to Rs 1000. Work that should take a month takes two-three months to be completed here,” he claimed, adding, “there is probably no other place on earth where people have to resort to so many transhipments.”

His words convey the collective deep-seated frustration of a community isolated from the world for nearly a decade.