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| Who owns Shingkhar? |
Thanks to the idea of golf course and constriction of a road. Shingkhar village, -yes, that's right, my birth place in recent times, have increasingly become a news piece for not only Shingkhaprpas but it has also become a topic of discussion for many Policy Makers, Environmentalist, Financial analysts and Economists.
To be honest, there is nothing tricky about this business. It is simply a conflict of preferences among different parties; -community on one side and road and golf course idea on the other side. But it will be wrong to presume that it is a tug of war between community and ideas alone, because these ideas have now drawn lot of attentions from other parties who apparently think, that they also have equal stakes in the business.
The fact of the matter is, Shingkhar is seeing some light of Investment (be it a foreign or national) coming via Tonglai ya after so many years. Shingkhar's investment requirement is not tricky one either. History of Shingkhar has many dis-equalibriums. Lack of investment is certainly one thing. Therefore when community sees one wagging in, they cannot help but go frenzy. For them its like "water in desert".
But the question is, is that a real kind of investment that the community and nation is in need of? What kind of economies and dis-economies will it warrant to locality and nation? What return is it going to give us, both in short term and long term? Is that a divergent investment or is that a convergent Investment? How are community values being judged? Does the welfare gain of one party really offset the welfare lost of the community and other stake holders?
Before we can either say 'YES' or 'NO' to the proposals, we may need to answer many more questions than those mentioned above. The problem at hand is a real economic, which few intelligent people in isolated room cannot solve. It needs a deliberation and diligent interaction among stakeholders. Proper property rights assignments are key to solving such issues. Who own Shingkhar? Investors or Shingkharpas?
The village is beautiful. Sorry i don't have any quality answer to your question but for one thing I know, the Shingkhar belongs to the people who live there and investors should see the comfort of the people.
ReplyDeleteThe comming of golf course is obviously not an idea supported by any in the Shingkhar community. but when it comes to the national highway, one thing is for sure, the national interest must come first and perhaps wemay look forward to some benefits that may come our way along the history line. obviously the lesson learnt from the past are quite fresh and still very much there exposed in terms of our forest trees being cut by the people from far flung areas. The comming of road should be respected but then to prevent the village from further ecological destruction, the forest department, as done elsewhere, should declare the forest stretching between Shingkhar and Gorga as a community forest free from external invaders.
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