What is your idea of tourism? A family trip to the nearest hill station? A lovely walk by a lake while staying away from social media and phone? A weekend where your dopamine levels are off the charts as you are in a freefall, shouting at the top of your voice, knowing fully well that the parachute will engage in milliseconds and you will descend onto the ground like a feather, guided by the wind?
Perhaps all the above. And interestingly, the Northeast offers all such, and many more experiences.
In the past decade, Northeast India has opened to tourism like never before, and rightly so: the region remains untapped and tourists, tired of going to the same old British hill stations, are looking for newer places, adventures, and people to engage with. And this is where adventure tours come into the picture.
In India, something as ‘simple’ as bungee jumping, or parasailing, which has been common in Western nations for decades, is still in its infancy. And within that picture, the Northeast has barely taken its first steps. Which makes the death of a 35-year-old in Tinsukia even more discomforting. Pankaj Gogoi, a resident of Lakhimpur, passed away hours after a parasailing accident at the Skyland Resort in Tinsukia, Assam.
This is neither the first such incident in the Northeast nor likely to be the last. But how safe is the Northeast for such ‘sports’? What is the mechanism in place to ensure that cases like the death of Pankaj Gogoi are mere aberrations? Who is allowing resorts to take tourists on such risky missions?
In light of Gogoi’s death, EastMojo looked at past accidents, where lives were lost owing to carelessness on the part of some operators, negligence on the part of authorities and recklessness on the part of tourists. It is a well-known fact that adventure tour operators and guides must have basic knowledge of first aid, CPR, and other things that help tourists in case of emergencies, and safety ought to be of utmost concern for any tourist engaging in adventure. But how much of this is true in Northeast India?
To find out more about the challenges that the adventure tourism sector faces in the region and what can be done to ensure such mishaps do not happen in future, EastMojo spoke with Oken Tayeng, Chairman of Adventure Tour Operators Association of India (ATOAI) for the northeast, who shed light on major problems that lead to such fatal accidents.
Root cause of fatal accidents
“It’s very important to ensure that people who are in the field and operating such activities are certified and trained with proper licenses from authorities. They must know safety and they must know how to conduct rescue operations. These activities are otherwise very dangerous, be it paragliding, white water rafting, or even simple things like trekking,” said the ATOAI Chairman, emphasising that people can’t just decide that they want to be tour operators or learn things from the internet and platforms like YouTube and call themselves instructors.
To strengthen his point, Tayeng pointed to a recent incident in Nagaland, where a tourist from Assam had died because he went trekking without a local guide.
On January 22, the Southern Angami Youth Organization (SAYO) informed that a domestic tourist from the neighbouring state of Assam was found dead at a rest camp above Dzükou Valley.
The SAYO later slammed the ‘disloyal act’ of the tourists in the region, who also violated the mandatory guidelines by not taking a local tourist guide for trekking to the Dzükou Valley, which shows that the responsibility of taking care of their own lives also lies with the tourist and the adventure enthusiast.
“I represent ATOAI; licences and recognition from bodies like ours or other government bodies, who verify and check that these people are qualified are a must, otherwise, it is a risky affair,” said Oken Tayeng. He added that this was only possible with help from the government because these rules have to be imposed by them.
Before these two incidents also, several such incidents have been reported from Northeast India, time and again, which reflect sheer negligence on the part of authorities and adventure tour operators. Such incidents could have been averted if precautionary measures were taken and if authorities were strict in the implementation of rules.
Here are some of them reported in the past few years:
Lower Subansiri, Arunachal Pradesh – October 2016
A Russian national, Aleksandr Lifanov, 59 from Moscow, reportedly drowned while on a rafting expedition in Kamala River near Tamin under the Lower Subansiri district on October 31, 2016.
West Jaintia Hills, Meghalaya – January 2017
On January 19, 2017, an 18-year-old girl from Rilbong, Trisha Sen Bhattacharjee, drowned after the newly-introduced flatboat made of bamboo with seven occupants, including her mother, capsized in the Krang Shuri river in Amlarem, West Jaintia Hills. The tourists got no life jackets from those who operated the boats made of bamboo reeds and thermocol. The incident also exposed that the bamboo boats were operating at Krang Shuri river without adopting any safety measures.
Gangtok, Sikkim – April 2018
On April 3, 2018, a young paragliding pilot Santosh Rai succumbed to a major head injury after a fatal fall on the concrete ground at Reshithang landing spot.
Kalimpong, Darjeeling – May 2018
In May 2018, the Kalimpong district administration had temporarily suspended rafting activities on the Teesta river, following the death of a tourist near 7th Mile. A Delhi resident, Roshan Singh, 37, drowned while rafting while his wife Bani Sikha Singh survived the accident. The guide, Kasim Hussain, managed to pull everyone back to the raft, but Singh’s life jacket disengaged when his wife tried to pull him back.
How do we reduce accidents?
“When it comes to adventure, anything can happen. But we can reduce accidents by ensuring proper precautions and using the right equipment. For instance, if you use good-quality ropes and harnesses while climbing a wall, chances of mishaps are less as opposed to if you do not use a good quality caravaner,” a certified adventure tour instructor and operator from Assam, Jitu Pegu told EastMojo.
“These equipment have to be recognised as per the European norms and standards and other international agencies like UIAA (Union Internationale des Associations d’Alpinisme),” Pegu added.
Pegu is among the few instructors in Northeast India to hold a Masters Degree in tourism with specialisation in adventure tourism from the Indian Institute of Tourism and Travel Management. He is also trained in skiing and mountaineering to name a few activities, and is a qualified zipline instructor according to European norms with 12 years of experience in adventure tourism.
“Adventure tourism started late in the Northeast of India, and we still have a long way to go. There is no proper mechanism, due to which there are such issues. Every state must have its own set of guidelines, policies and these things are missing,” mountaineer Anshu Jemsenpa told Eastmojo.
Speaking about the scope of adventure tour activities in the region as someone who promotes adventure herself, Anshu shared that when she started, there was no awareness about adventure tourism or mountaineering, and people were unaware of this concept.
“People would ask us what is the use? And why were we doing it? People thought we were wasting our time, and mountaineering is an expensive sport. I think raising funds was a greater challenge than climbing mountains itself!” said Jemsenpa.
“Now, slowly, due to the record climbing, we are also trying to bring awareness about adventure sports like mountaineering. In Arunachal, this is one sport through which the government can generate good revenue and employment, but we have a long way to go,” said the record holder, who scaled Mount Everest twice in a season.
Stating the example of Ladakh, Himachal and Uttarakhand, Jitu Pegu said, “Sikkim may have developed like that, but the rest of Northeast has a long way to go. Since we are blessed with the mighty Brahmaputra, rafting can be done there.”
The toughest and most expensive rafting expeditions in India happen in Arunachal’s Siang region, which starts from Tuting and ends in Pasighat. Here one may face rapids up to Grade 4 or 4 plus.
There are lots of trekking routes in the Northeast, but they are not as popular as the Har Ki Dun trek for instance, which has been promoted well, said the adventure expert. “If you speak of the Talle Valley trek, people will know nothing about it despite it being a UNESCO-recognised site situated at Ziro Valley of Arunachal Pradesh,” Pegu added.
“There is tremendous scope for trekking and hiking as there are many trails here in the northeast, and hiking in high altitude regions come with its share of risk factors. Rafting can be done in Arunachal, then we conduct motorbiking and cycling tours in the northeast,” Supuraj Gogoi, an adventure tour operator from Assam, founder of Natventure, told EastMojo.
Finding the right personnel for the job
“I’ve been operating from Northeast for about five years now. I am the only adventure tour operator in the region who is a member of the Adventure Tour Operators of India (ATOAI). We follow guidelines penned down by the ATOAI. It is mandatory to follow all guidelines to be a member. This includes having trained instructors with one instructor for every ten persons in a group from Nehru Institute of Mountaineering or other such institutions which provide such courses,” said Gogoi.
When asked if finding such people was a difficult task, he explained that the same was not tough at all. However, the cost-cutting aspect prevented people from hiring such instructors.
“One can easily approach institutes with students pursuing these courses asking to hire instructors for their adventure tour company instead of just giving ads in newspapers and magazines and appointing anybody even remotely interested in ‘adventure’,” Gogoi added.
Also read: Assam: One person dead in parasailing accident at Tinsukia resort
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Northeast India indeed needs qualified trainers and adventure tour operators. I completely agree with Tayeng ji and Anshu Jemshenpa and Mr. Pegu. We need more individuals from the mountaineering sector as well. But the high course fee and the availibility of seats are one issue that deters many interested individuals. And as Gogoi said, approaching the institutes is the right option to find the qualified instructors.
For Har Ki Dun Trek you must check out, https://banbanjara.com/tours/har-ki-dun-trek