Thromde: Almost two months after they submitted a petition to not be a part of the yenlag thromde, villagers of Thangchu Gonpa are still awaiting a response from Samdrupcholing dungkhag in Samdrupjongkhar.

All 58 households signed the petition soon after the dzongkhag tshogdu endorsed Samdrupcholing as the yenlag thromde.

Few villagers said each household has 50 decimals of their five acres land within the thromde boundary. They wonder if their remaining land would fall in the rural side because that would mean paying both rural and urban land tax.

Chiwog tshogpa Jigme Tenzin said rumors has it that once a land is demarcated as thromde, they would be deprived of basic rural facilities nor it will remain under the gewog jurisdiction.

“If any natural calamities occur then where are we supposed to report to, gewog or thromde,” Jigme Tenzin said. “It’s not that we don’t want thromde but they should include the entire five acres of land.”

A majority of these villagers comprise of resettled retried soldiers. The Fourth Druk Gyalpo had granted five acres of land to each household as kidu in 1992.

Although, each house is constructed on the 50 decimals of land, the rest of the lands is located few meters from Thangchu Gonpa and not included within the thromde boundary.

They also said that neither the dungkhag nor the dzongkhag administrations had consulted them during the survey. Villagers claim that the officials did not inform about the pros and cons of thromde and its facilities.

Few added it would take more than 10 years to have a proper thromde. Yet, they would have to pay urban tax without any basic urban facilities. This was another reason why they preferred their chiwog to remain excluded from the thromde.

Another villager Ap Wangpo, 67, said he has nine children and it would be difficult to share 50 decimals of land because all would prefer the urban land. “This is why, we are saying to either include the entire land into the thromde or exclude it completely,” he said.

The issue was also raised during the Prime Minister’s visit to the gewog. The prime minister told them the matter would be looked into and asked villagers to submit the issue in writing.

“We don’t know through whom we should submit our petition to the prime minister,” the village tshogpa said. “We hope they would study our petition at least once.”

Samdrupjongkhar dzongkhag engineer Pelden Norgay said the matter was discussed among the dzongkhag tender committee members and it was found that since the yenlag thromde was already endorsed by the Parliament, they would go by the Parliament’s decision.

Pelden Norgay said Thangchu Gonpa is located between the Dungkhag office and Samdrupcholing market, the village fell under the thromde by default.

“We surveyed the area based on the map provided by works and human settlement ministry for almost a week. So it cannot be possible that villagers weren’t aware about the survey.”

By Yangchen C Rinzin, Samdrupjongkhar