Samtse to appeal to PMO for town development funds

KP Sharma

Samtse—After years of stalled progress and mounting frustration among residents, local leaders in Samtse have decided to escalate their call for urgent development funding.

The Dzongkhag Tshogdu (DT) in Samtse has decided to formally approach the Prime Minister’s Office and other relevant agencies to seek additional budget for the development of Samtse town.

Despite being officially designated as a town more than 15 years ago, Samtse has seen little in the way of infrastructure improvements, according to local officials.

This decision follows several years of discussions on the slow progress of the planned Samtse Throm, which has been delayed due to the absence of a separate budget.

The current town development activities are funded through the dzongkhag’s annual budget, where resources are distributed across multiple sectors based on urgency and priorities. This has limited the scope for focused development works in the town.

Samtse Thromde Ngotshab, Som Kumar Pradhan, said that although the town was established over 15 years ago, there has been little infrastructure progress. “In the core town, we still don’t have good roads and the dust pollution has affected the residents and visitors,” he said.

He questioned the reasons behind the government’s inability to blacktop roads or provide other basic urban infrastructure.

Som Kumar Pradhan said that the town’s development was expected to be given first priority over other projects. However, keeping it under the Small Development Project (SDP) category with secondary status has led to delays.

He said that in Local Area Plan (LAP) 1, which includes areas such as Devithan, Gairigoan, and the Army Welfare Project zone, only formation cutting of internal roads has been carried out, with no further physical improvements like blacktopping or footpath construction.

In LAP 2, which covers Daragoan, Gurung Basti, and the area near the Damdhum substation, some areas remain without water supply connections despite being located along the Phuentsholing-Samtse highway.

Residents in these areas continue to pay urban taxes, and utility bills for water, waste, and electricity are collected under the urban billing system, though urban services and facilities are not yet in place.

The chief dzongkhag engineer, Chane Zangmo, said that town development proposals have been submitted every year but securing funds has remained difficult because of other competing demands. “For the next financial year, Nu 55 million has been proposed for Samtse town development, while the total allocation for the entire dzongkhag stands at Nu 92 million, to be shared across all sectors.”

In the last financial year, a budget of Nu 311 million was proposed but was not approved. Zangmo said that the current ongoing works are funded through the CD budget.

Officials said that Samtse submitted three SDP proposals to the Cabinet Secretariat, including one for town development.

However, only the vegetable market and borewell construction projects were approved.

On road construction, officials explained that building roads before completing other infrastructure works makes them vulnerable to immediate damage.

Samtse Dzongrab, Choeku Wangchuk, said the dzongkhag is continuing its focus on town development with the available resources and that formation cutting for roads has been completed using the CD budget.