(Top) The Kalijhora picnic spot (a file picture) as it used to be a year ago and now (in picture by Chinlop Fudong Lepcha)

Kalijhora, Dec. 31: While the new year is being ushered in, people from these parts regret the fact that fun and frolic can no longer be associated with the picturesque Kalijhora.

Dammed out, or at least in the process of being so, Kalijhora — the popular picnic spot on the confluence of the Teesta and the Kali khola — is today an apology of its former place. Today a martyr to the cause of development, the place has to give way to the generation of electricity by the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC).

There, however, was a time when the site, where work on Stage IV of the Teesta Low Dam Project is underway in full swing, used to be chock-a-block with New Year revellers. As Dilu Lohar, who runs a small tea stall opposite the Kalijhora PWD bungalow, said: “Till the last picnic season (December and January), this place used to be packed with so many people that one, literally, had to struggle not to step on someone else.”

This year, though, there have been no signs of picnickers, even on the eve of the new year.

Instead, as The Telegraph found out, the place today has turned into a beehive of activity as the NHPC men and machine went about piling huge molehills of sand to construct a dam at the spot. “On January 4, 2006, about 10,000 people had picnicked here,” said Angad Pradhan, manager, Picnic Spot and Eco-Tourism Development Committee, Kalijhora

Pradhan, however, has not lost all hope. “The NHPC plan envisages construction of a picnic spot on the other side of the dam. It may not be able to accommodate as many people as the picturesque natural venue used to, but we will have to make do with it,” he said.

Lohar, however, is not so optimist. “We used to make most of our business during the two months of the picnic season. This year, however, it has been very bad for us and we will have to struggle to survive the next year,” he said. According to the tea-stall owner, the income per day used to be as high as Rs 1,000 during the season.

It’s not only monetary interest that has been prompting people to “regret” the “destruction” of the place. “I have very fond memories of that place. I remember we had gone there on a picnic some time in 1980 while I was a student,” said Robin Thapa, a teacher of St Anthony’s School in Kurseong. “I am sure, many more, not just from the hills but also from the plains, would mourn the loss of such a place.”

And he is not so wrong either. After all, Kalijhora — around 40 km from Kalimpong and 25 km from Siliguri — used to be one of the favourite haunts even for people from Assam in the east, Kishanganj in Bihar in the west, Krishnagar in the south and Darjeeling hills and Sikkim in the north.