Buses registered in Bengal and ferrying passengers to Sikkim will now be able to reach Gangtok and won’t have to drop people off at a point from where they need to hire a local vehicle to the hill state’s capital, Bengal transport minister Snehasis Chakraborty said on Thursday.

Bengal and Sikkim share a reciprocal agreement defining the number of buses that enter the Himalayan state daily and vice versa. The agreement also covers cars and similar vehicles carrying tourists, and the extent to which they can go in either of
the states.

Officials from both states recently met to review an agreement signed in 2022 and outline the contours of a new memorandum of understanding (MoU).

The states have agreed to work on the contentious clauses from the previous agreement. The final agreement will be drawn up shortly after the formalities of documenting the terms and conditions are over.

“While reviewing the last agreement, we echoed concerns of tour and transport operators from Bengal about how buses entering Gangtok are made to stop at a taxi stand nearly 6km from the capital. This has to stop, we told the officials from Sikkim,” Chakraborty told this newspaper.

“They have agreed, and buses from Bengal will be allowed to reach the state capital directly. This means tourists will no longer have to hire a vehicle from the outskirts of Gangtok, where they are dropped to reach the hotels,” said the Bengal transport minister.

Tourist carriers and transporters said close to 150 buses of both state governments reach the Himalayan state daily from Siliguri.

The ones carrying tourists from Bengal are made to stop at a point near the district court of Gangtok, close to a bypass. The hotels in the state capital are located some 4km from this point, and tourists need to hire a vehicle to reach the central business district of Gangtok.

“We want to tell both states that if tourism has to flourish, efforts should be made to make things easier for visitors instead of making them difficult. If tourists are allowed to go to Gangtok on buses, it will be easier for them to get to the hotels,” said Samrat Sanyal, general secretary of the Himalayan Hospitality and Tourism Development Network, an apex body of tourism stakeholders.

Madan Cintury, the MLA from Zoom-Salghari, led the delegation from Sikkim. Raj Yadav, the secretary-cum-commissioner of the Sikkim Nationalised Transport, was also present.

Senior officials said the restriction on the movement of buses into the heart of Gangtok was aimed at reducing congestion and ensuring tourists don’t get stuck for long while moving in and out of the capital.

During the review meeting, the Bengal government also raised concerns of a section of transporters that Sikkim charged an additional fee of ₹200 daily from those entering the Himalayan state on cars and SUVs with national permits.

The minister said that this, “along with a few other points”, has been discussed threadbare, and a consensus has been reached on how to promote tourism and transport better.

“Both states have agreed to increase the number of permits issued to tourist buses
so more vehicles carrying visitors can visit each other,” Snehasis said.