CM announces Pilgrimage Tourism development for Tumin-Lingee

A Ramayan troupe from Tumin-Barang flaunts the attributes which make it apt for the village to get a Ramayan-Basti project.

NEW ANNOUNCEMENTS: Rs 500 FOR EVERY NEWBORN TILL THEY ATTAINED 6 YEARS OF AGE, A UNIQUE HOME FOR SENIOR CITIZENS WHERE THEY WILL BE INVOLVED TO NURTURE CULTURE AND TRADITIONS AND KEEP MEMORIES ALIVE

SAGAR CHHETRI
GANGTOK, 15 July: Chief Minister Pawan Chamling today announced plans to develop Tumin-Lingee constituency as a Pilgrimage Tourism destination. The announcement was greeted by a large applause at Makha, where the CM made his first halt of the day as he resumed his village-to-village tour of the State. With the circuit of West and South districts completed, the CM started with East district today. Through a hectic day of travelling through occasional heavy downpours, the CM met with the people at Makha, Tumin-Barang, Samdong Senior Secondary School and Tintek BAC.

Speaking more specifically on the infrastructure planned, the CM announced that a Ramayan Basti [village] will be developed at Tumin-Barang, spread across a 15 acre campus. In this regard, he directed the area MLA and DC to immediately start the assessment process to acquire land at a reasonable price and to complete the land acquisition and payment process by August and start the work on the project this year itself.
He detailed that the complex be landscaped with depictions from the Ramayana and the project so developed so that unlike other places where the people could read and listen to the Ramayana, at Tumin-Barang, they could also watch the epic played out.
He stated that tourism-related development was becoming more focussed in Sikkim now and destinations being developed with unique attractions. For the Tumin-Lingee constituency, pilgrimage tourism was being planned to create opportunities for the people here to achieve self-reliance, he said.
“The government wants to bring 50,000 tourists to Sikkim every day so that every individual willing to make a living on his/ her own steam receives the opportunity to do so from the tourism sector,” he said.
He urged the people to assist the development of the Ramayana Basti project and invited their suggestions and feedback on how to make the project uniquely Sikkimese.
The CM pointed out that the area already has a Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya and other existing potential for pilgrimage tourism which could be polished and refined to attract a wider audience.
Such plans, the CM added, were part of a wider initiative to ensure that development reached all parts of the State by leveraging the potential of respective areas to improve prospects of economic well being.
The Government, he stressed, could create infrastructure and opportunities, but it would still require the proactive involvement of the people to achieve results. He urged the people to seize the opportunities and with it, take development to a new level in Sikkim.
He also announced that if anyone was interested to take up village tourism and develop home-stay facilities, the government would help by sponsoring the addition of two rooms to their house and extending other required support.
Even as tourism promotion was being addressed, the State was also investing on improvements in connectivity, he shared. Around Rs 200 crore worth of road projects of the PWD are underway across the State, he informed.
“Around 99% of the PWD road works have been offered to cooperatives so that profits from these contracts go to the people and not just to individual contactors,” he said. He however rued reports that in many places, these works were being sold out by the cooperatives which had bagged the contracts. This, he stressed, was unhealthy because such sub-letting compromised the larger aim of the government to make the people self-reliant.
The policy decision to secure contract works for cooperative societies, he said, was as much to help them secure financial security as it was to strengthen the cooperatives from the skills and experience its members gained from carrying out the works.
To reinforce the point, he also announced that the limit of works which cooperative societies could undertake will soon be enhanced to Rs. 2 crore.
The CM also informed the people that the State Government has suggested that the Central Government adopt the Sikkim model of CATCH [Comprehensive Annual & Total Check up for Healthy Sikkim] for the 12th Five Year Plan which begins next year.
On the Government’s policy interventions in the social sector, he announced that a “Jyastha Nagrik Ghar” [Senior Citizen’s Home] will be set up shortly in the State. He informed that this will not be an old age home in the traditional sense, but will be a centre which will involve senior citizens in the preservation of Sikkim’s culture, heritage, traditions and experiences.
He further announced to provide Rs 500 per month to newborn infants till they attain 6 years of age to ensure better care and nourishment of the infant and also to encourage people to opt for hospital deliveries.
“Our priority is to take up qualitative works and I want to hand over a self-sustained, self-sufficient and developed state to the young when they come of age. All I ask in return is for the students to grow up with a clear understanding of their responsibilities towards the state and its people,” he said.
Touching briefly in political issues, he commented that people, when they are approached with “slogans for change” by sections opposed to the government, should bear in mind that change was welcome when it was for the better, but could unravel everything that has been secured for the State if the change was pushed for the wrong reasons of individual gain.
In his interactions with the students, the CM detailed the various schemes and scholarships now in place to ensure that economic considerations or social complications did not come between them and their aspiration to learn well. He urged the students to concentrate on learning and benefit from the improved facilities now in place for them in Sikkim.
On the demands placed by the people at different venues today, the CM assured to take up all the works on priority and need basis.