One has heard of tourists taking baths in hot water springs or in icy cold water, but tales of tourists boiling eggs in hot water springs have never been heard of before.
Tourists visiting hot water spring at Tat Ha under Chhipadohar west range of the tiger reserve in Palamu ‘boil eggs in the hot water here’, said forester in-charge Akhilesh Kumar. The tourists come here with eggs or buy it from the locals, he added.
Kumar showed this correspondent the spot and the style with which eggs are boiled by the tourist. No utensil is needed as eggs are right kept on the sand where comes the hot water, he said.
Tat Ha hot water spring is around 52 kilometers away from Daltonganj and the road to it is painfully broken and disintegrated.
DS Srivastav, a well-known Nature campaigner, said if tourists have so much of affinity with this hot water spring at Tat Ha, then it is all the more important to market this hot water spring with some bare comforts for the tourists here at this hot spring.
Srivastav said the area where this hot spring is must be saved from encroachment. He said its natural flow be kept intact.
He said some local tribals here want a kind of monopoly of this hot water spring which often leads to outbreak of hostility between these few locals and the PTR officials.
Srivastav said a mutual faith and trust building exercise is needed to be done here.
Kumar Ashish, deputy director North division of the tiger reserve Palamu, said, “We are toying with an idea to hold a medical camp here as part of healing the wounds of
doubt and distrust among the local populace.”
Srivastava said the sand here is no coarse and hence tourists may like to sit here. He said there should be no concretisation of the hot water spring.
The local Congress MLA Ramchander Singh Chero has pooled in fund from his MLA quota for two units of tourist lodge here with two units of toilet as well. All these are under construction barely hundred meters away from where this hot water spring flows.
Deputy director Ashish said, “A handful of villagers here have put up a board like that of Pathalgari warning us not to carry out any activity without the permission of the gram sabha.” The board reads felling of trees, causing fire and destruction of habitat and biodiversity etc are ‘strictly prohibited’ at the Tat Ha forest.
There is one intimidating stone writing which reads it is our forest (Sari jungle hamari hai) which by proxy is a warning to forest officials not to enter the forest without the permission of the villagers of Tat Ha, said the forester.