Floods affect tourism sector at Dibru Saikhowa National Park

Privately-run eco-tourism projects are taking a beating in upper Assam’s Dibru-Saikhowa National Park with the 765-sq-km protected area witnessing one of the worst floods since its inception in 1999.
Operators of these ventures lamented that the government was not doing much in the form of financial assistance or redevelopment so far.
Soumyadeep Datta, director of Nature’s Beckon, an environmental activist group active in Northeast India, said that it was a matter of grave concern that the government is totally keeping mum over the losses incurred by the small but highly promising eco-tourism projects. “There should have been some assessment of damages suffered by these operators and necessary assistance should have been extended to them for redeveloping their projects,” he added.
The national park, which is also a biosphere reserve, is mostly covered by water with rivers like the Dibru, Dangori, Dholla and Brahmaputra flowing alongside the park. There are also many rivulets which pass through the park. In the rainy season, when the rivers are in spate, the park presents the picture a huge sea with no traces of landmass for kilometres.
The beauty of Dibru-Saikhowa, its orchids, bio-diversity, flora and fauna, are unique in itself due to which many tourists even take summer trips through mechanised boats to the interiors of the park.
With the state government always preferring to undermine the potential of the national park for reasons best known only to it, many local private operators had taken up initiatives to develop eco-tourism in the vicinity of the park and generate employment for the unemployed youths.
Three eco-tourism projects have suffered losses as their infrastructure has been washed away by the floods.