Men and women of the Singpo tribe of Inthong village in Margarita in Upper Assam are waiting for their first tourists. Their 20-room eco lodge with bamboo walls, frond ceilings and bamboo doors is ready to play host to travellers.
The lodge took eight months to come up. The initiative was taken by the Delhi-based closely-held DS Group, which has taken almost all its packaging and rubber-based industries to the North East. It is best known for its Catch brand of spring water beverages and Rajnigandhi pan masala.
The CSR Foundation has a dedicated Rs 2-crore annual programme for the development of communities in the North East.
The eco lodge might not be an altogether new experiment. Functionaries of the CSR Foundation say British Gas too had set up an eco lodge in Fening in Upper Assam and the project generated good income for the community.
“The idea is to make the communities independent. When they wanted more money to expand, we said that they should rent the lodge to tourists and generate money to expand it themselves,” says a functionary, adding: “We have no wish to kill their enterprise.”
It has plans for other parts of the North East as well. Three officials of the foundation have been tasked to identify the need and suitability of interventions in different parts of Assam, Tripura and Meghalaya.
“We have just started work in Meghalaya with a health camp. In Tripura, we have donated money to set up a government medical college. We are trying to help the communities without entering into any PPP agreement with the states,'' says the functionary.
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In Assam, a DS Law college has come up in Guwahati with funds from the company.
The foundation is also involved in the revival of heritage sites. A major project over the past five years has been the construction of a museum in the Kamakhya temple premises in Guwahati and the renovation of small shrines in the complex.
In eight years, the foundation has provided financial aid of between Rs 25,000 and Rs 25 lakh to eight government schools. But when the community demands more, like it did for the Fening primary school, the foundation puts its foot down.
“They wanted us to build a wall around the school. We told them they were good at weaving and making bamboo fences around their houses. Could they not make it for their school,” the functionary says. And, sure enough, the community built the fence.