Situated on the Atharamura hill range in Khowai district of Tripura, Montaung, an unexplored place, is emerging as a new destination for tourists due to its natural beauty.
Known as the ‘Mountain of Peace’ among the local Tripuri community, locals and tourists from other states are rushing to get a closer look at the floating clouds, Prasenjit Debnath, a faculty in the Department of Journalism at Tripura University , who recently visited the spot, said.
A narrow and winding track of about 30 km from the National Highway (NH8) near the Chakmaghat barrage leads to the top of the Atharamura hills. The site is about 80 km from the state capital Agartala.
The place came into limelight when documentary filmmaker-turned-politician Kamal Kalai built a ‘Tong Ghar’, a thatched bamboo hut anchored on slats made of bamboo and wood, to spend time there.
“Taking some time out from my busy daily schedule, I thought of spending some time at Tong home. I would cook rice and vegetables collected from jhum fields and fish caught from small rivers flowing down the hill,” Kalai, a man from the tribal community, told PTI.
The place suddenly turned into a bustling tourist spot and emerged as a new destination for travelers and nature lovers after pictures of the place were posted on social media, which went viral.
Kalai is now the executive member of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) after winning the election in April last year.
The Tribal Council constitutes two-thirds of the state territory.
After becoming an executive member of the tribal council, he was able to get funds from the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) to build a link road from National Highway 8 to Montaung, as this beautiful place comes under his constituency, and One there ‘Tong home’.
“My dream is to convert this place into a full-fledged tourist destination. TTAADC does not have enough money to spend there. That’s why I want the state tourism department to focus on the development of this place. Focused on law and order going because people have started going crazy to see the place”, Kalai said.
He also plans to convert a part of the place into an organic farm and encourage floriculture to make it a ‘flower village’.
One Surinder Kumar, who recently came to visit Tripura with a group of friends from Punjab, is overwhelmed by the natural beauty of the area but said there was no proper infrastructure.
“It is such a lovely place that everyone coming from outside will enjoy it very much. It is a completely unknown place to the rest of the country. Infrastructure should be created to provide facilities to the tourists. The road connecting to the National Highway is so bumpy that no visitor would like it. There is no bungalow to live in”, he told a group of journalists.
Tourist operator, Supriya Deb, who is also a member of Tripura Tourism Development Forum (TTDF), said that it was estimated that at least 500 tourists come here every day, while the infrastructure is very poor.
Deb told PTI, “I have seen that there are only 7-8 shops here that sell indigenous tribal food and handicraft items and also a makeshift restaurant where biryani is sold and a tong house where Owner’s wrist stays many times.
However, Rahul Paul, a youth who has visited the place several times, said that tourists enjoy indigenous food like Bangoi, a special type of rice boiled in a special variety of leaves grown in the hills, and pork bharta.
When contacted, a state tourism department official said, the state government is planning to build infrastructure there and widen the road connecting it to the national highway and build other facilities.
“We are planning to develop the place. He said that tourism is now the priority of the state government.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)