Road to boost Sidrapong's tourism prospects - Connectivity and cottages for the site of India's oldest hydel power project

A building on the premises of the Sidrapong hydel project. File picture

Vivek Chhetri, TT, Darjeeling, March 30: The GTA today kicked off a project to promote tourism at the site of Sidrapong hydel project, which is the country’s oldest hydel power plant commissioned in 1897. 

At present, there is no road connectivity to the hydel site, situated 12km from Darjeeling and in the foothills of Arya tea garden

“We realised that despite a virtually non-existent connectivity, some tourists, basically foreigners, trek to India’s oldest hydel project. We feel the place has a potential to be developed into a major tourist attraction and that is why we have decided to improve connectivity and put in place amenities for the tourists,” said Binay Tamang, executive GTA Sabha member.

Tamang today took part in a bhumi puja to start the construction of a road from Orange Valley tea garden’s factory to the hydel project. “A road will be constructed over a distance of 2.5km. We will also build a steel bridge (over the Kotwali stream). The total cost of the road and the bridge is Rs 3.96 crore,” he said. 

“The GTA will also start the construction of eight cottages for the tourists. The area will be beautified also,” he added. 

The total cost of the entire project will be around Rs 8 crore which was sanctioned by the Centre in November 2014. “In the memorandum of agreement signed with the Centre and the state government (for the formation of the GTA), we had demanded that Sidrapong hydel project, the oldest in India, be restored. The Union finance department has allocated Rs 8 crore for its restoration from the annual central package of Rs 200 crore for the GTA,” said Tamang.

The hydel project at an altitude of 3,600ft was commissioned on November 10, 1897, by the then acting lieutenant-governor of Bengal, Charles Cecil Stevens. The power plant that still generates 0.6 megawatt of electricity a day is fed by three streams, Barbata, Hospital and Kotwali.

The project was under Darjeeling municipality till 1978. On January 30 that year, the state government had taken over the hydel project, along with 12 other power plants around Darjeeling town.