By Our Correspondent
Humla, Feb. 8: Locals in the Himalayan district of Humla, which has not been connected with road networks, are still forced to cross the mighty Karnali River using life threatening tuins (cable crossing). Pleas of locals to build a suspension bridge over the river have fallen on deaf ears for years, compelling people to depend on tuins to go across the Karnali.
Jundevi Fadera of Sarkegard Rural Municipality, Ward No. 2 expressed her pang of having to use a tuin due to the absence of a suspension bridge. “Crossing the river using a tuin even during winter when the water level diminishes is scaring, one cannot imagine the ordeal we go each time while crossing it during monsoon,” she said.
Fadera added that people of nearly 200 houses have to depend on the tuin to collect firewood and fodder. Having to carry such load causes most of their supplies to fall into the river, she added.
According to Babar Jung Hamal of Chhipra in Kharpunath Rural Municipality, Ward No.4, locals have to depend on a tuin to get to the rural municipality headquarters.
Although there was a plan to construct a bridge at Chhipra, it has not been built because of the contractors, and locals still depend on a tuin to cross the river, he said. “Because crossing a tuin requires great strength, many of our friends have bruises all over their hand and one of them was seriously injured after falling from the tuin.”
As the distance between the ward and the local level headquarters is long, many locals tend to use the risky tuin, he said.
Likewise, Hikmat Shahi, a local of Bokche Gauda, Kharpunath-2, said that the locals had to cross the river using the tuins.
Karna Bahadur Rawal, chairman of the Kharpunath Rural Municipality, informed that after a plan to construct a suspension bridge failed, they were building a pair of tuins using cemented pillars across the river in the current fiscal year.
Although the government has announced to replace all tuins with suspension bridges across the nation, they are still in use in Humla district, where half a dozen new tuins are now under construction over the Karnali River, he said.