SHILLONG, Dec 20: Sohra, the most sought after tourist destination in Meghalaya prior to the telling intervention of COVID-19, is today grappling with a nagging sense of doom and gloom. With tourists footfall having reduced to a negligible trickle these days, the local stakeholders who had just begun to reap profit, are a worried lot. Will the tourists return in hordes like before? Will they not? That’s the haunting question they have no answer for.
A visit to Sohra last weekend revealed that tourists are slowly coming in but not as many as there used to be, the local vendors at Noh Ka Likai Falls said. They had opened up on November 18 last and visitors are trickling in but not as they used to before lockdown.
The popular Bansiewdor Dhaba at Noh Ka Likai is today empty. So are the smaller eating joints nearby. The place which was once bustling with tourists now looks like a shadow of its former self.
The small vendors selling local knick-knacks and the locally grown cinnamon said that for nearly seven months their earnings suddenly stopped. They told this correspondent that they had to rely on the free rations provided by the government while some were fortunate enough to be provided with job cards under the MNREGA. But all of them said they prefer to earn their livelihoods as they have been doing in the vicinity of the Noh Ka Likai. For them this waterfall is a god-send, they said.
The number of homestays in Sohra has mushroomed in recent years. Obviously, fair investments have gone into these ventures. The sudden closure due to the pandemic has created a sense of helpless worry.
Tressina Diengdoh who owns the EMISOBA homestay and restaurant at Sohra and rents out three rooms said that while the going rate for the rooms used to be Rs 3000 per day, now they have come down to Rs 1200. Her empty restaurant told its own story.
Even the Orange restaurant which is usually throbbing with life and rarely has a table free is now operating at minimum capacity.
Each one of these homestay owners, many hesitant about giving their names, the vendors, restauranteurs, tour guides, tour operators et al are just counting the days when life gets back to normal but they also realise that ‘normal’ may not arrive any time soon and are struggling to keep body and soul together.
When asked if they knew about the current Inner Line permit (ILP) agitation and had calculated whether the ILP would put a brake to their businesses, many said that no one consults them on anything and neither do they have any association of homestay owners that can carry their voices and give them a hearing.
“Anything that disrupts tourism in Meghalaya will be a huge financial setback for all of us small stakeholders who have just entered the business and are beginning to earn our honest livelihoods from tourists. Of course everyone says that ILP will not deter tourists from visiting Meghalaya but we know that they will not feel at home entering a state that asks for a visa to enter it,” a homestay owner amongst the many that have come up on the way to the Dainthlen Falls said. Others too echo his concerns.
Sohra today has some of the most spectacular waterfalls ranging from the very famous Noh Ka Likai Falls, to the Dainthlen Falls and now the more recently promoted ones like the three-tiered Wei Sawdong, the Janailar Falls and then in the lesser known Mawkma village is the beautiful Lyngksiar falls.
So, while the pandemic has hit the tourism industry hard, it is the fear of the stakeholders that introduction of the ILP system will add to the burden of those who have strayed into the business of tourism.