Village Lodge at Ziro

Itanagar-Ziro-Daporijo-Along route has been the most popular tourist routes, next only to Bhalukpong-Bomdila-Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh. Even so, accomodation issue have been a nagging problem in this route. Not any longer in the near future. Ideas of village tourist lodges are catching up with the people at Ziro.

One such lodge with a restaurant has been started recently.

The building, mostly of wood and bamboo, has a freshening look and the restaurant serves Indian, Chinese, Continental and Traditional Apatani dishes.

Old Ziro - a little history

Come 2012 and Old Ziro township will be 60 years old. The neglected and worn out stone at Old Ziro has silently witnessed the changes coming to the place over these decades.



Since the first recorded visit in 1889 of an outsider to the Ziro valley by HM Crowe, a tea planter of Joyhing Tea Estate in Assam, there are records of sporadic similar visit to the area till India attained independence. Though a provisional base was established at Ziro when the now famous anthropologist Furer von Haimendorf was in the area in 1944, the official base was in Kimin at the foothills for a long time. The journey from Kimin to Ziro those days involved several days of perilous journey through pestilential forests. It was on March 24, 1952 that Ziro township was formally established by R. G. Menzies, Political Officer, and divisional headquarters of Subansiri Frontier shifted to Ziro. And on August 15, 1960, the headquarters was shifted to Hapoli.



Today, the part of Ziro called Hapoli is a town whereas Old Ziro still retains the status of a rural area. And true to its status, little has changed over the dedades, except for some concrete building standing like odds men out in the old Old Ziro.



The initial headquarters of the entire Subansiri Frontier Division, comprising of today's Upper Subansiri, Lower Subansiri, Kurung Kumey and Papum Pare districts has an airfield (constructed in 1951 also under the supervision of R. G. Menzies), the office of the Block Development Officer (BDO) and a Community Information Center (CIC) to reckon with.

Apatani Irrigation System

There are many finer practices of irrigation of agricultural fields among the Apatanis. One is the channel within the field to ensure retention of appropriate amounts of water throughout the year. These channels also prevent sudden drainage and subsequent washing away of fertile top soil from the field.

With the increased popularity of psciculture, more innovative methods are being used these days .

Fencing Plants

It is not for nothing that the Apatanis are known to be good farmers. Gardening has been one of their expertise from time immemorial. Gardens are classified into two categories - balu which are near the houses, usually at the backyard and are the typical kitchen gardens; and yorlu, which are further away from the village. These gardens provided varieties of vegetable, notably beans, pumpkins, chillies, gian haman, potatoes and so on. It also served as the nurseries for millet.



One of the prohibiting factors of any kind of gardening had always been fencing, because cattle or wild animals were always a threat to them. The Apatanis solved this problem by using plants like sankhan melyan and tai belan as fencing materials.

A stroll around any of the several hillocks in the Ziro valley is a pleasure and a walk on a path between two neatly bound natural fencing is sheer ecstasy.

Water Management

A few days back, I met an avid traveler who had just been to Ziro and enthusiastically telling me how beautiful the place is. He had all praise for the agricultural system of the Apatanis. I was happy to meet one more person who appreciates the tribe and its customs. Then he started speaking about the ‘Keley’ river and remarked that the water there should be used for irrigation purpose!

“It is the water of that river which irrigates 90% of the rice paddy you saw,” I told him.

“How can that be?” he was incredulous. “That river bed is lower than the paddy fields.”

I then understood that he just had a glance at the paddy fields and the river, but not really looked at the irrigation system of the Apatanis. It also made me realize how really expert the Apatanis are in maximally utilizing the water resource in the area. The traditional irrigation channels (siigangs) are diverted from the main river at the traditional irrigation projects called bogos made of bamboo and wood.

Moreover, the perfect gradient of the irrigation channels – the siigangs – are something to be given a thought. Neither does the water in any of the siigangs flow too fast to cause damage, nor does it flow too slow to remain stagnant anywhere in its course.

Apart from irrigation, there are other areas of water management that is often not noticed. One is the traditional way of erosion protection using bamboo and wood. This was a laborious affair, as it had to be repaired every year, but it was quite effective. That is the reason the course of the ‘Keley’ river had not changed over all these years.