Nabarangpur: Located in Nabarangpur district of Odisha, the Podagarh tourist destination is located at a distance of 11 km from Umerkote and 78 km from Nabarangpur, the district headquarter. The Podagarh hill is covered with flora and fauna. Punjisil waterfall is located at a distance of 5 km from Podagarh.
When winter comes, everyone’s first choice is to go for a picnic in the lap of nature and have fun, enjoy the natural beauty. One such tourist destination is the historical Podagarh.
This place is historically also relevant. A few years ago, people from different corners of the state and neighboring districts used to flock to the Podagarh tourist destination. However, these days this place is deserted.
There is connectivity problems, water, electricity problems, and no facilities for night stay in Podagarh. Hence, people are turning faces away from this tourist destination.
According to legend, this tourist destination has a history of 1500 years. Many historical stone inscriptions and stone carvings from the reign of the Nala dynasty here are on the verge of extinction due to lack of maintainance. The king’s Ishta Devi is still worshipped by the locals on the hilltop.
Stone inscriptions, parrot cages from that time are there. But due to lack of maintenance, they are disappearing. Unfortunately, there is no ladder to go to the top hill. So most people are now afraid to go to the hilltop.
A year ago, the government had allocated about three crore rupees for the development of this tourist destination. However, the work which was supposed to be completed three months ago as per the agreement, has been delayed and is still going on at a slow pace. The locals are demanding that the beautification work be completed at the earliest. Locals said that if the state culture department had paid attention to this and tried to improve it, then tourists would have come back and enjoyed its beauty.
