The Siddhesvara Dham at Solophok hilltop, opened for tourists on Tuesday. Picture by Prabin Khaling

Gangtok, Nov. 9: The inauguration of Siddhesvara Dham has shifted focus to the acute water deficit in Namchi which is expected to witness a tourism boom in coming years with the promotion of the religious site.

The state government has spent Rs 56.51 crore out of the sanctioned central funds of Rs 99.56 crore to create the Siddhesvara Dham that boasts a 108ft tall statue of Lord Shiva and replicas of four sacred Hindu shrines in the country.

The remaining amount will be utilised to build guesthouse, shops, statues of religious deities and water reservoirs besides landscaping the entire complex spread across 29.9 hectares.

With the inauguration of the religious site at Solophok hilltop, Namchi would be one of the most sought-after tourist destinations in the Himalayan state.

However, the residents as well as the hoteliers of Namchi fear that the tourists will stay away from the town because of water shortage.

Chief minister Pawan Chamling and Shri Jagadguru Sankaracharya Swami Swarupananda Saraswati during the religious site’s consecration on Tuesday. Picture by Prabin Khaling

“We get water for a few hours in the morning. At times, the supply is limited to alternate days. The shortage will be more acute during the winter when streams dry up. To overcome the crisis, people here hire vehicles to bring water from nearby streams. When the streams dry up, we travel further to collect water from perennial sources,” said a Namchi resident.

The usual cost of fetching water in vehicles is Rs 600 for 2,000 litres.

A large number of hotels have come up in Namchi in the past few years after the 135ft tall statue of Guru Padmasambhava was inaugurated at Samdruptse hill, located across the Solophok hilltop. The hotels request the guests to use water judiciously given the shortage in the town.

A tourist consumes around 70 litres of water on an average a day during his stay in a hotel.

“As the supply cannot meet all the needs, we have to hire vehicles or tankers to fetch water from streams far away from Namchi. Now that the Siddhesvara Dham has come up, we expect more tourist footfall in coming years. If the water crisis is not solved immediately, the tourists will stay in hotels at other places in South Sikkim to visit Namchi,” said a Namchi hotelier.

Solophok hilltop is 5km from Namchi, which is the administrative headquarters of South Sikkim.

Tour operators also want the government to address the water problem on a war footing.

“As the number of hotels will increase in Namchi, more water will be required. We plan to brief the tourists on the water shortage before we send them to Namchi and request them not to misuse water,” said Paljor Lachungpa, the adviser to the Travel Agents’ Association.

The public health engineering department has said Namchi, which has a population of around 12,000, is supplied with 1.8 million litres of water per day, while the demand is around three million litres.

“There is a shortage of water in Namchi and for a long term solution, we are preparing a project which will be submitted to DoNER ministry by the end of this November. The DoNER minister (Paban Singh Ghatowar) during his recent visit to Sikkim had assured the state government that funds required would be sanctioned for the project. The report is given a final shape, keeping in mind the local requirements as well as the tourism potential offered by the Siddhesvara Dham,” said PHE secretary T.B. Rajalim.

The project, the cost of which is tentatively pegged at around Rs 95 crore, aims at meeting Namchi’s water requirement for the next 30 years.

The estimated cost could go up when the project report is completed by the end of November, said a PHE source.

Now, water is sourced from the Bermeli khola, 47km from Namchi, and is supplied to the town for three hours a day. The project seeks to tap water from five more sources, apart from the Bermeli khola.