Tiny hamlets now tourism focus Minister - -Deb bullish on Kalimpong’s potential

The Bengal tourism department has drawn up a plan to promote rural tourism in the new district of Kalimpong and promote it as a model district in rural tourism.

The decision comes in the wake of homestays, private resorts and other accommodations mushrooming across the district’s rural areas.

As a part of the plan, Gautam Deb, the state tourism minister, has started paying visits to prospective destinations and places already known but are yet to gain popularity among tourists visiting the region.

During the past few days, he visited Nokdara and Rishop, tiny hamlets of the hill district located within 35km  of the district headquarters of Kalimpong. Officials of the district administration and his department accompanied him.

“I have visited a couple of destinations in Kalimpong district where rural tourism can be developed with proper planning. We are exploring all possibilities to develop such facilities and will assess the potential of new destinations in the district. If rural tourism is promoted properly, it will also create employment for local residents,” said Deb.

Rishop’s idyllic hilly landscape is picture-postcard peaceful and also useful for short-distance nature trails. Nokdara, the other location, is a new site that can be developed into a destination for tourists.

An official who was with the minister on the trip, said that Nokdara has a lake where boating can be introduced.

“The serene location is surrounded by lush green forests. Also, visitors can enjoy a majestic view of the snow-capped Kanchenjungha, along with fabulous sunrises and sunsets. It is just 34km from Kalimpong town,” he said.

Raj Basu, a veteran in the tourism industry in the region who is assisting the department to conduct the survey, pointed out that the growth of rural tourism in Kalimpong district was encouraging more and more people to come up with accommodations in newer or less-known locations.

“The entire Kalimpong district has huge potential for village tourism,” Basu said. “In a number of places, local residents have developed facilities for visitors along with some private tour operators. What we now need is concrete planning from the state’s side to create more sites and also promote the locations,” added Basu, who is also the convener of the Association for Conservation and Tourism.

source  : The Telegraph

Chilahati-Haldibari rail link eyes Dec, March hope for Siliguri-Dhaka

IN Pic : A loco of Bangladesh Railway at the trial run from Chilahati station to the India-Bangladesh border on October 27

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The Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh intends to start train services along the Haldibari-Chilahati route from December 2020 as well as a passenger train service to connect its capital  Dhaka with Bengal’s Siliguri from March 2021.

The route between Cooch Behar’s Haldibari and Bangladesh’s Chilahati is likely to open on December 16, which both countries celebrate as Bijoy Dibosh or Vijay Diwas to mark the day in 1971 when Pakistani troops surrendered to the allied forces of India and Bangladesh, ending war of liberation for Bangladesh.

The Dhaka-Siliguri route is likely to come up on March 26, Bangladesh’s Independence Day. In 2021, Bangladesh will celebrate 50 years of independence.

Trains used to run through this route over five decades earlier — Bangladesh was East Pakistan then — but had stopped in 1965 during the India-Pakistan war.

During the past few years, governments of both India and Bangladesh had taken the initiative to lay railway tracks and put up ancillary infrastructure to run trains along the route. Work is almost over on both sides of the border.

Last week on October 21, Bangladesh railway minister Nurul Islam Sujon met Vikram Doraiswami, the new high commissioner of India at Dhaka’s Rail Bhawan.

After the meeting, an official release issued by the Bangladesh government the next day stated that the railway minister said the tracks for the Haldibari-Chilahati route would open this December.

“The railway minister said the railway line from Haldibari in India to Chilahati in Bangladesh will be launched in December,” said the release.

In an official post, the High Commission of India in Bangladesh said that at the meeting, Doraiswami and Sujon had discussed “ways to further enhance #IndiaBangladesh connectivity.”

The news release issued by Bangladesh press information department stated that its government was also mulling another plan, that is, introduction of passenger train services between Dhaka and Siliguri.

“….Besides, there are plans to run a passenger train from Dhaka to Siliguri on March 26 next year, the minister added,” reads the release.

Across north Bengal and in Bangladesh, there has been a steady demand to introduce train and air services. Thousands of Bangladeshi nationals visit Siliguri and nearby areas for education, healthcare, commerce and other reasons.

Many Bangladeshi tourists visit the hills every year, including Sikkim.

As of now, there are four rail routes that connect Bengal with Bangladesh, Petrapole-Benapole, Singhabad-Rohanpur, Gede-Darshana and Radhikapur-Birol.

Bus service is available from Siliguri to Dhaka via Changrabandha of Cooch Behar. Trial runs have been conducted to run buses along the Dhaka-Siliguri-Kathmandu route as a part of the transport agreement signed among the neighbouring countries but the service is yet to start.

“A passenger train service linking Bangladesh will give a major boost to the regional economy of north Bengal. We are eagerly waiting for the day,” said Samrat Sanyal, general secretary, Himalayan Hospitality and Tourism Development Network.

Sources associated with the Haldibari-Chilahati route rail project said that chances were high that the route opens on December 16.

A trial run by the Bangladesh Railway two days back has cheered the residents of Cooch Behar’s Haldibari. “It was nice to see the locomotive of the Bangladesh Railway approaching the border after years. On both the sides, work is on in full swing and it will be great if the track is finally commissioned in December,” said Satish Dutta, an elderly resident of Haldibari.

Officials of Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR), the zone of Indian Railway that has been working on the rail project, said tracks have been laid till the border. “Some ancillary works at Haldibari station are in progress. We do not have any information as to when the rail route will open but we have instructions to finish the work by December,” said S. Chanda, the chief public relations officer of NFR.

Additional inputs by Anirban Choudhury in Alipurduar

source :telegraph