Boating for 40 years, fear of job loss due to bridge construction

58-year-old Dhruva Mallah of Sammarimai Rural Municipality-5 in Rupandehi spends the whole day at Bharaulia Ghat. For 40 years, he has been driving a boat at this ghat. The houses of the residents of Bharaulia are Danavari and the fields are across the river. Lumbini Cultural Municipality-12 has many people coming from here. So it is an old fashioned ghat.

For the residents here, the alternative to cross the river is a boat. Dhruv, who earns his living by renting a boat, is known as "Naunka Chalak" among the villagers. In this way, sailors don't take cash for daily ferry crossings. The villagers have been giving him food. Every 6 months, he has been given different types of rice and wheat at the rate of 50 kg per household. There are 70 houses in the village.

"They give me paddy, rice, wheat, pulses, I don't ask for money," Mallah said, "If a new person comes from outside the house, I will take money at the rate of 20 rupees." That's why he also embraced this profession from a young age, he said.

4 months of the rainy season run a boat . After the water in the river decreases, he goes to the neighboring country of India to earn. He said that when he did not go to India, he worked as a laborer in the village. There is no alternative for income other than the sailor's boat and the work done by going to India . The family consists of parents, wife and 5 children . He is the only one who works. He said that he had to do other jobs along with boating to support his family.

Earlier there was no option for the locals to cross the river except by boat . Now a suspension bridge has been constructed at Danava one kilometer south of Bharaulia Ghat. It has been two weeks since the bridge was put into operation. After the construction of the bridge, half of Mallah's customers have decreased . According to him, earlier, more than 500 people used to cross from the boat. Now they are reduced by half .

The grain collected by sailing the boat is not used for all food . He said that he is saving the expenses of educating his children by selling what is left over for food. Earlier the residents of Bharaulia lived across the Danava. After the annual flood caused erosion and flooding, they were displaced and migrated and arrived at Sammarimai-5.

The villager said that he has migrated three times so far. Now the house is by the river. The farm is located in Bhabai village. Residents of Bharaulia have to go to Bhavai daily to do farming . For that, you have to cross by boat. There is no Kaligarh to build such a boat here. That is why the sailor said that he spent nearly 3 lakh rupees and called Indian Kaligad to repair the boat.

47-year-old Dhanai Mallah of Kothimai-1 Sipwa has been driving a boat since he was able to work. This is also his ancestral profession . He is making a living driving a boat in the two estuaries of Tinau and Danaw, and now he is worried that his profession will disappear . "From the time I was born, my father and grandfather used to transport people in boats," he said, "we changed 4 boats, I also spent my life driving boats." One kilometer south from there, another concrete bridge is in operation . One kilometer north is the suspension bridge . Therefore, he is worried that his profession will be in crisis . Sometimes no one comes to cross the river by boat except the fishermen. Due to the union of Tinau and Danava, the ghat is called two springs.

Now a concrete bridge is under construction in two estuaries. As a result, he expressed fear that the work of boating will be stopped from next year . Now people wait all day . Nowadays, it is common to earn one and a half hundred rupees daily. Bridges were not built to cross the river before. So there was a boat in the middle of the back and forth of Sarvasadharan.

At that time, the sailor said that he earned up to 1 thousand rupees a day. They don't have farming . There is no option of earning. His wife died of cancer five years ago. Collected loans and donations and took them to Bharatpur Cancer Hospital in Chitwan. After the death of his wife, the responsibility of household affairs is on his shoulders alone. Leaving his son studying in class 8 and class 1 at home, he reaches the river at 6 in the morning . He has neither a place to eat, nor rest. They charge 20 rupees per person for boat ride and 30 rupees for motorcycle.

Out of the money earned by selling the boat, 2 lakh rupees more was spent on his wife's treatment . Even now there is a debt to be paid to the neighbor . "What will you do to survive from next year," he said, "I have not done any other work, I have to go far away to work, leaving my son and old man, where will I go, what kind of work will be hot."