Bhubaneswar, India (TAN): A tiny village in the state of Odisha in eastern India is reaping profits just a few years after an eco-tourism project was launched there by the state government.
In 2018-19, Badmul earned Rs 1.3 crore (USD 190,000 approx.) from eco-tourism. The village had 3,000 visitors, 20 per cent of whom were foreign tourists.
Badmul is a remote village in Odisha’s Satkosia forest reserve. An eco-tourism project was launched there by the state government in 2016 and driven by community participation.
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The project has made the village the highest revenue grosser compared to other community-based tourism projects in India.
“This is the highest ever earning recorded by a village in the country from any community-based project. Odisha’s eco-tourism model stands out because 90 per cent of the revenue is ploughed back to the local community. By offering them a sustainable livelihood option and empowering them, we have made a big success out of the eco-tourism projects,” Anshu Pragyan Das, divisional forest officer (wildlife division) and deputy conservator of forests (eco-tourism), Odisha forest department, was quoted by the Business Standard as saying.
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The project, called Satkosia Sands Resort and Nature Camp comprises nine tents pitched on the Mahanadi river bed and seven cottages on the hill slopes overlooking the Satkosia gorge.
The resort at Badmul is managed by 28 villagers with the project providing income to five or six villages. Earlier, residents of these same villages would migrate to other states in search of livelihood and some even turned to poaching. Poaching has ended after more and more villagers started gaining employment from the resort.
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The nature camp runs a programme — “Poachers turned Protectors of Satkosia” — wherein the tourists can meet former poachers, now rehabilitated by the forest department.
