Raima! You are today
A new named Gumoti
You were once
A daughter of Bolong, Koromoti
Each word, our history you’ve woven
This land’s footprints, we inherited
As water rises
Our past submerges.
These verses from the poem written by Bikash Rai Debbarma, an ethno-nationalist writer and poet, captures the rupture in both land and life in Raima-Saima valley, which was submerged when a dam was built on the Gomati River basin. In his poem, he describes how Dumboor Lake not only displaced tribal communities, but also severed history, memory, and the very idea of place, leaving behind a landscape marked by fragmentation, disjunction, and estrangement. His poem, too, echoed this deep sense of disconnection. It is the story of generations who once sowed the earth, now casting nets on restless waters—farmers turned fishermen, carrying their fields only in memory.
A Paradise Built on Submerged Fields
Dumboor Lake in central Tripura shimmers under the sun across 41 square kilometres of blue water dotted with 48 green islets. Boats glide across its surface, migratory birds rest on its edges, and tourists marvel at what they call one of the state’s most beautiful sights. It lies in the Ganda Twisa sub-division, about 120 kilometres from Agartala, the capital city of Tripura.
Yet beneath this postcard view lies another story. Dumboor is not a natural lake. Its waters cover what was once the fertile Raima–Saima Valley, celebrated as Tripura’s “granary.” In 1974, the Gumti Hydroelectric Project dammed the Gomati River, hailed then as a milestone of modernisation after Tripura’s merger with India. Policymakers promised it would generate 15 megawatts of electricity. Instead, it submerged an entire valley and uprooted thousands of tribal families who had lived off its rich soils for generations.
From the drowned landscape, a few scraps of land rose above the waterline. The Tourism Department quickly declared them attractions, while the Agriculture Department planted coconut saplings along their edges. Over the years, these islands took on a new identity. What had once been a thriving river valley became “Narkel Kunj” or Coconut Island, which is today one of Tripura’s best-known tourist destinations.
Life in the Raima–Saima Valley
Before Dumboor’s waters spread, the Raima–Saima Valley thrived. It was home to communities such as the Reang (Bru), Chakma, and Tripuri, whose lives were interwoven with rivers, forests, and fertile fields. Alongside settled paddy farming, they practiced jhum—shifting cultivation that allowed the land and forests to regenerate. The valley produced abundantly, with rice, vegetables, and fruits sustaining both households and vibrant barter networks that reached beyond the hills.
Pancharam Reang, now 66, remembers: “Before the dam, we grew rice and vegetables in abundance. I was a boy then, but I still remember how we raised cattle and harvested fruits. Raima–Saima was no ordinary valley, many wealthy tribal families lived there.”
The connection to the valley was more than material. Ancestral songs, myths, and festivals such as Garia and Hangrai marked the cycles of sowing and harvest. Kairu, 71, recalls: “The Gomati River was not a lake then, but our lifeline. Many families carried ghee, sesame, and jute on bamboo rafts to faraway markets in Natunbazar, Melaghar, and Amarpur. The journeys took months, and before setting off, they worshipped the local goddess at Tirthamukh for safe passage.” These memories speak of a landscape that nourished both body and spirit. It was a place where culture, livelihood, and dignity were rooted in the soil.
The damming of the Gomati in 1974 changed everything. Built as part of India’s post-merger vision of modernisation, the Gumti Hydroelectric Project was hailed as a “temple of modern India.” Commissioned in 1976, it promised 15 MW of electricity and water conservation. The power never arrived—Tripura still does not receive the capacity it was meant to—but displacement, dispossession, and loss were fully realised.
Official records count 2,558 displaced families, but activists like Kabita Jamatia argue the real figure was much higher: between 8,000 and 10,000 families, affecting nearly 70,000 people, mostly from indigenous tribes. The eviction drive remains etched in memory. Police forces and elephants were deployed to demolish homes and drive people out. Panchanram remembers: “When the dam work started, the state brought elephants and the police with them. The elephants were used to push down our houses, while the police stood guard to make sure no one resisted. We watched our homes collapse in front of us, and we could do nothing.”
“As the dam was set up over the rivers the water level rose and gradually the entire area of Raima and Saima valley, including Borok villages, submerged. The Borok peoples inhabiting the area were forced to leave their homes. To drive away those who chose to remain, the government dispatched police, central reserve police forces, armed forces with elephants and committed all sorts of atrocities including burning villages, execution, and illegal detention upon the innocent Borok inhabitants,” mentions Kabita Jamatia in her letter to the UN Comission on Human Rights
The National Award-winning Kokborok film Yarwng [Root] later captured these events on screen, but for those who lived through it, the loss was far more than cinematic.
Many families held only customary land rights. After the Tripura Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act of 1960 vested all land with the state, they were excluded from compensation and relief. Entire communities were scattered. Some pushed to the uplands, others across state borders into Assam, Mizoram, or even the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh. The Reang (Bru) community faced repeated cycles of displacement.
When the Raima–Saima valley was swallowed, families who had grown paddy, sesame, bananas, and jackfruit for generations suddenly found themselves adrift. Farming vanished with the fields. Fishing, once a modest sideline for rituals and meals, became survival. Nets replaced ploughs, boats replaced cattle, and the water that took their land became the only source of livelihood.
Kanchanmoi Chakma, 67, was a boy when his family was driven out. “We were told to leave with no choice. We farmed rice in the valley, then tried jhum in the uplands. But soon, we had to return to the lake. Fishing became all we had.” Today, he bends into Dumboor’s waters each morning, but the nets yield little. “Earlier, fish were plentiful. Now we work harder for less,” he sighs.
The government once stocked the reservoir with species like Catla, Rohu, tilapia, mrigal, and prawns, turning Dumboor into Tripura’s largest inland fishery. In the early years, state cooperatives provided nets, licences, and boats. But as time passed, outside traders muscled in, restocking stopped, and fish declined. Licences now cost Rs. 10,000, and government-fixed prices leave little room for profit — between Rs. 4 and Rs. 20 per kilogram, regardless of effort.
“We became fishermen because the water left no choice,” says Suresh, a second-generation boatman. “Before this lake, we had never even seen a wooden boat. Our grandfathers only made bamboo rafts. Dumboor changed our fate — from my ancestors till my father, we were farmers. Now, fishing is our only inheritance.”
For women, the transition was even sharper. They lost not only fields but food security. Ishika Chakma, notes how women now mend nets, dry fish, or cook for tourists. “We were tied to land and forest. Now we tie our lives to water, but the work is harder and always uncertain,” she says.
Fishing and Fisheries: An Unstable Lifeline
Fishing may have replaced farming, but it is an unstable livelihood. Fluctuating reservoir levels, seasonal scarcity, and disrupted breeding cycles mean stocks vary wildly. Studies confirm that Gumti reservoir once supported a rich diversity like Catla, Rohu, Mrigal, Silver Carp, Tilapia, Calbasu, and prawns among them. But overfishing and reduced stocking have led to serious decline.
Fisher collectives complain of inequities in governance. “The government charges us for licences but fixes the prices so low that we barely recover costs,” says Kanchanmoi. “Middlemen make the profit, not us.”
Tourism now draws visitors with boat rides, panoramic island views, and cultural festivals. For some locals, this offers a lifeline: ferrying tourists across, cooking for visitors, or running small stalls. But tourism is seasonal, precarious, and uneven. Most displaced families cannot invest in resorts or formal businesses. Instead, they absorb the costs of building boats themselves, taking loans for supplies, while outsiders reap bigger profits.
The dam that created Dumboor was meant to generate 15 MW of electricity. Nearly five decades later, it has never achieved that target. Siltation, erratic rainfall, and technical failure have kept Tripura dependent on gas and central grid supply.
Yet instead of closure, revival plans persist. The Tripura State Electricity Corporation Ltd. has asked NHPC to prepare a report to restore the project’s full capacity. It is pitched as renewable, reliable, and cost-effective power — despite its history of displacement and underperformance.
Indeed, the promises of land-for-land compensation were never delivered. Police and elephants were sent to evict families. Between 8,000 and 10,000 households — largely indigenous tribes, were scattered across uplands, Assam, Mizoram, and even Bangladesh. Official tallies only note 2,558 displaced families. “What kind of progress counts our losses as invisible?” asks Ishika, the student granddaughter of one displaced farmer.
Dumboor today is remembered differently across generations. Elders recall a valley of abundance, cattle, fruit orchards, and rituals tied to the land. Younger people see only water, their memories inherited through stories.
“I never saw the fields, only heard about them from my grandmother,” says Ishika. “She told me the river once flowed clear and green. Now, we only know the lake.”
The shimmering waters that attract tourists conceal fractured histories and fragile livelihoods. Dumboor is not only a tourist postcard, it is a wound of forced adaptation, where survival depends on uncertain fish stocks and seasonal visitors, while promises of power still remain unfulfilled.
The story of Dumboor is not unique. Across India, dams have been hailed as “temples of modern India.” Yet many generate far less power than promised, while submerging fertile valleys, eroding food security, and uprooting entire communities.
In Tripura, Dumboor stands as both symbol and warning. It reflects how development that ignores justice only multiplies inequities. It shows how water governance like licences, pricing, state control, can deepen rather than ease marginality. It reminds us that fishing, once a choice, became compulsion; and that tourism, while profitable for some, offers little stability for those who lost the most.
In a climate-uncertain world, where erratic rains and shrinking rivers already test resilience, can reviving old dams truly count as sustainable development? Or do they simply replay a cycle where those with least power pay the highest price?
The waters of Dumboor ripple with these questions. They ask us to rethink not only hydropower, but the very meaning of progress. And until the voices of displaced communities are placed at the heart of decision-making, Dumboor will remain less a story of power generated than of power taken.