Tourists on the Chambal river

New Delhi, April 21: Chambal’s dacoits have a new career option — to play guide.

The men who loot and kill might find themselves handing out binoculars and benignly pointing out gharials if the Madhya Pradesh Ecotourism Development Board has its way.

The board is keen to develop the ravines of Chambal as a tourist destination. The “famed badlands” — as it describes the area rather romantically on its website — have great potential to attract naturalists.

“The area has a rich bird population,” CEO Gopa Pandey said. “There are gharials, Gangetic dolphins and muggers in the river. We want tourists to take a boat ride in the river.”

To test the waters, a floating jetty has been constructed at Rajgath in Morena, offering travellers a lazy ride down the river.

The board, which has been planning opening up this area to tourism for a while, even commissioned a film by Delhi-based Wilderness Films last year and did a pilot run with Ibex Expeditions hoping to get tour operators interested.

“The idea was for the area to be developed into a great destination,” said Ibex Expeditions founder Mandeep Singh Soin. “It can be a great way to rehabilitate the dacoits in the area and give them an alternative livelihood.”

Soin imagined tours where reformed dacoits would use their colourful pasts to spin stories to entertain tourists. But so far, operators have been less than enthusiastic.

“Since tour operators had not come forward, we decided to open the jetty ourselves. It will be manned by the forest department,” Pandey said.

Rajghat is a perfect detour for adventure lovers driving down from Mumbai or Agra, she said.

But although the legendary dacoits who made Chambal famous have gone, it still remains dangerous territory. On April 13, Jyotiradiya Scindia’s convoy was attacked and his secretary thrashed and robbed.

“Simply bringing in tourists will not solve the situation,” said Malkhan Singh, one of the most famous of Chambal’s dacoits. He surrendered three decades ago and is now a village sarpanch. “The problem of dacoity is about social injustice and till the government doesn’t deal with that, there will be a problem.”

But Singh, who has taken around many French tourists, is open to having dacoits as guides.

“You need someone experienced to take you around. They will protect you with their rifles. I know the area really well and can tell you great stories of my exploits.”