Allow Bengal’s taxis in Sikkim: Mamata

TNN | Sep 4, 2015, KOLKATA: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday wrote to her Sikkim counterpart Pawan Kumar Chamling requesting him to allow luxury taxi operators from Darjeeling and Dooars to obtain permit for plying across the neighbouring state. At present, these luxury taxi operators can't move beyond Gangtok. However, their counterparts from Sikkim can roam freely anywhere in Bengal.

In her letter, Mamata has said that the bar on Bengal's luxury taxi operators to move beyond Gangtok needs to be lifted for promotion of tourism in both the states. She has asked the principal transport secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay to take up the issue with the senior transport department officials in Sikkim.

Taxi operators from Darjeeling and Dooars have long been demanding the permit to ply their vehicles across Sikkim These taxi operators had an active support from tour operators of the region who complained before the state (Bengal) government that tourism industry was being affected because of the ban on such vehicles from Bengal imposed by the Sikkim government.

"Several requests made to Sikkim government for lifting the ban fell on deaf ears. We had tried our best to break the logjam at officer-level talks held between the two states. But nothing has changed. Now that the CM has taken up  the matter, we hope to get desired results. We will eagerly wait for a positive feedback from the Sikkim government on this issue," a senior official of state transport department said.

Ratan Ghosh, a tour operator based in Siliguri, welcome Mamata's initiative saying that it was the need of hour for the survival of tourism industry.

Shared by KalimNews in kalimpong News at http://kalimpongonlinenews.blogspot.com/2015/09/allow-bengals-taxis-in-sikkim-mamata.html and http://kalimpongnews.net/2015/09/04/bengals-taxis-sikkim-mamata/from Times of India