Hill decision to open for tourists `preparatory work'

MANAS R BANNERJEE, SNS, SILIGURI, 26 JUNE 2020: As the Gorkha land Territorial Administration's (GTA) move to open the Hills for tourists from 1 July drew criticism from several quarters, GTA's Assistant Director of Tourism Department, Suraj Sharma, said the idea is to remain prepared to provide good hospitality to tourist; so as to revive the tourism industry whenever the Hills are fully ready to welcome the visitors.

Tourism activist Raj Basu, who is also the advisor on tourism affairs in two states of Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, echoed Mr Sharma and said the decision to open hotels in the Hills is simply a message to interested tourists about the "preparedness" to welcome them in Darjeeling.

"We know thousands of tourists will not come from day-one of resuming business. But hoteliers can start bookings for visitors who want to come in or after October. As part of preparedness for the revival of the tourism industry in the rural belt, meetings with community leaders should begin so that stakeholders can ready the basic facilities and requirements to receive tourists post-Covid 19 period." Mr Basu said. According to Mr Sharma, a section of people, mainly from the corporate sector and some other sectors including the IT, are interested to visit the Hills. "As the work from-homes system continues, many professionals are interested in the idea of work-from hotel with family members. as they feel suffocated staying home since March-end. We have held a series of meetings with hoteliers as well as home-stay owners in rural belt as part of this preparedness," Mr Sharma said.

"Hoteliers will not be getting a good flow of visitors at the beginning, but the tourism industry should bounce bath during the Pujas and Christmas and NewYear-2021 in the Hills. And all this will be possible if we start preparing right from now," he added.

However, a section of administrative officials, who are engaged in Disaster Management and who are fighting the coronavirus transmission among people in the region, said: "The decision to open hotels is not judicious at the present situation."

People in the Hills also fear coronavirus transmission, keeping in mind the " alarming situation" in the Siliguri Municipal Corporation and its adjoining areas, which is considered a Tourism Transit Hub.'

Though the administration has not yet officially declared Siliguri's situation as 'Stage-III' (Community Transmission), a section of health officials believe that community contamination is on in Siliguri as 'sources of transmission' are unidentified and Covid-19 cases are on the rise by the day.

Significantly, the Darjeeling district administration has marked a whopping 51 category-A coantainment zones in Siliguri areas that fall under the Darjeeling district, along with 16 other zones in the Matigara and Naxalbari blocks.

It is learnt that people from different areas, including the Hills, now fear travelling the Hills, now fear travelling to Siliguri, while officials have also urged people to avoid unnecessary travel. Mirik SDO Ashwini Kumar Roy has appealed to people to avoid travelling to Siliguri. except for an emergency.

The decision to make such an appeal was taken after at least six staff of the Mirik health centre were tested positive for Covid- 19."Though source of transmission were not specifically identified for all positive cases, the drivers were engaged in ferrying swab samples to the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital and in collecting reports regularly." official sourcess said about the Mirik cases.

Talking to this correspondent, Ujjal Ghosh, the Joint Secretary of the Greater Siliguri Hoteliers Welfare Association, said:"Around 50 percent hotels opened here.

Many of them may shut down soon the present situation continues in Siliguri. In fact, the occupancy rate is a mere five percent at present. The present inflow is very low due to several reasons, including lack of proper transportation network.The occupancy rate was higher than the present during the total lockdown period."

"I am not hopeful that our counterparts in Da neeling Hills will be able to operate their hotels if such a situation continues," Mr Ghosh added.

As the Hills fight Covid-19 after receiving over 5,000 returnees from different states, Darjeeling MP Raju Bista today pointed out: "I appreciate the honesty of the present GTA Board of Administrators' Chief and former chief who fnally accepted d uring the all-party meeting in Kolkata that the Hills/ GTA region does not have any microbiologist/virologist and trained technician to run a full-fledged ICMR-approved Covid testing laboratory. I am most hopeful that their plea for trained personnel to be sent to our region will be heard and acted upon by the West Bengal government at the earliest."