A view of Mongar town

Now the centre may be moving 90 kilometres west, to Mongar. And going by the pace of growth it may not be long before Mongar becomes the urban and business capital of the eastern districts. If you travel to Mongar these days, skeleton of buildings under construction greet you even before you enter the town.

The old traditional buildings are lost in a maze of newly built three-storey concrete buildings. And the noise from the construction sites start early in the morning and continue late into the night.

After years of being a bus stop town Mongar is growing fast. Residents say the number of constructions in the past five years was more than what took place three decades ago.

Town chimi Namgangla, one of the oldest residents, told Kuensel that the change has been phenomenon. “It all began in 2001,” he said.

According to him, a proper Mongar town was formed some time in the late seventies. “There were few traditional houses then with countable number of hotels and grocery shops,” he said. The first few traditional buildings came up in 1985.

Private builders say Mongar hold promise for the future. “We feel that our investments would not go in vain,” said a builder from Lhuentse, who chose anonymity.

Increasing construction has led to an increasing land price. It was learnt that a plot of land (13 decimal) in the commercial centre in early 2002 cost about Nu.550,000. “Last year there were people who made offers of up to Nu. 1.2 million,” said a municipal official.

The town today has entertainment centers, shopping complexes, and about three standard hotels to cater to tourists and high officials on tour.

Pema Tenzin, who runs Hotel Drukyul, said that he had to upgrade his hotel from a traditional house to meet the changing demand. “More people now visit the place and they demand better facilities and quality services,” he said, adding that competition forced him to introduce services like free breakfast for foreign clients.

Bigger private projects like the 27-room Hotel Wangchuk, scheduled to be completed soon, is expected to add to the town’s commercial growth. Proprietor Chencho said that plans were laid much before after learning from tour operators that the place lacked a proper tourist hotel.

While the increased number of builders has put pressure on municipal office on land transactions and demarcation procedures, the financial institutions seem to be doing well.

The Bhutan National Bank Limited credit officer, Sonam Gankar Dendup, said that a major chunk of profit the bank in Mongar made was from housing loans. According to him, the bank received about 110 clients for housing loans within three years since the bank’s branch office opened in Mongar. “Loans have also been taken to build houses on the periphery of the town,” said the credit officer.

Mongar dzongda Lhab Dorji attributes the development of the town to the Kurichhu project. “It also has to do with the growth in government investment and coming in of regional offices,” he said.

With the opening of the Nanglam-Gyalpoizhing road and a feeder road from Mongar to Lhuentse, Mongar is poised to become the central trading hub in the east, according to the dzongda.

But he pointed out that the dzongkhag lacked other avenues, besides standard hotels, to attract tourists. “We need to identify places where tourists can trek and encourage good nature based tourism,” he said, adding that they were in the process of renovating the old Zhongar dzong to be opened to tourists.

Despite the rapid growth the town has its drawbacks. The buildings in the core town area have not been planned well and the alleys between the buildings are narrow and without proper parking space.

According to municipal officials the structure plan for the main town was laid in 1993 and about 43 plots were allotted in 1998.

“After that we started the area development plan for the peripheral area and about 78 plots were allotted in 2004,” said Phuntsho, an assistant engineer. “There were not many experienced people to get their drawings done and as it incurred expenditure, most had photocopied the drawings from the first few plot owners to avoid the hassle.”

The town today has an area of 140 acres.

He said that while Gyelpoizhing was expected to become a major town, it would not hamper Mongar’s growth as infrastructures like the regional hospital, dzongkhag office, and schools were in Mongar.

The dzongkhag is planning to extend its municipality to Kilikhar in the north and Ridaza in the south. “We have to look at the growth in the next five to ten years,” said the dzongda. Going by the current pace of growth the town would need all the area it can get.