How Khotang locals’ struggles to bring water pays off

BY RAJ KUMAR BHATTARAI

Khotang, Jan 26 : Residents of Hauchur in Rawabesi Rural Municipality-6, Khotang, had first decided to dig a tunnel through Deurali hill in 1987. 

When there was no other option to bring water from Locha River (Hauchur River) to the fields, a group of Hauchur people led by Birkh Bahadur Magar of Manebhanjyang, Okhaldhunga, was tasked with digging the tunnel. 

The villagers’ dream was to complete the tunnel with a loan amount of Rs. 144,000 taken from the Agriculture Development Bank and 40 muri crops collected from the village.

Magar's group had first dug a tunnel under the Deurali hill, but it was soon covered by a landslide. 

After that, villagers again entrusted the group of Hark Bahadur Magar from Lamidanda, Tirpa to dig the tunnel. After digging for some time, the tunnel got covered again. 

The team survived the disaster, but their digging tools were buried inside the tunnel. 

They still had to dig 200- meter-long tunnel to bring water after digging two-kilometer tunnel from the river to Deurali.

The villager's dream, which failed to materialise twice, finally came true in the third attempt. 

After restoration of democracy, the tunnel was dug in 1992 with Rs. 60,000 allocated by the then Hauchur Village Development Committee and 40 muri of grain collected from the villager, said Khagendra Karki, leader of tunnel construction committee and the then deputy chief of Hauchur Village Panchayat.

A group of four people from Hauchur succeeded in digging the 200-metre tunnel by breaking the mountain from 200 meters below the ground. 

A team of Chankhe Sarki, Sarune Nepali, late Birkh Bahadur Karki and late Tammar Bahadur Karki succeeded in digging the tunnel from 1992 to 1995.

Recalling their memories, Chankhe and Sarune shared that they had tunnel digging experience in coal mines and made use of that while digging another in Hauchur. 

At first, they had used hammers, iron rods, among other rudimentary tools, and after digging inside, they could not use bigger tools and shifted to chhino and screwdriver. 

They even had difficulty for vision due to kerosene lamp and so used candles. 

But, when they ran out of candles they used oil lamps. Digging tunnel without any technical device was really hard, they informed.  

After completion of the tunnel in 1995, about 200 ropanis of land of previous Haichur VDC Ward Nos. 7 and 8 is being irrigated from the water of the river. The water from the same tunnel also reaches the lower field. There are two houses above the tunnel and neither of them has been affected, they said.

According to the ward office, this year, the ward has scheduled a programme to honour the tunnel diggers. There is a historical site below the tunnel and Primakotgarhi above the tunnel. 

Ward chair Chiranjevi Karki said that the ward has planned to develop a tourist destination by including the historical areas of these three wards. He said that the DPR would be prepared within some time.