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Sikkim lobbying for alternative highway
to bypass Darjeeling

The highway has been blocked for eight days due to a Gorkha National Liberation Front-called strike in the Hills, which has throw life out of gear in Sikkim.

Chief Minister Pawan Chamling met Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Tuesday in New Delhi and placed before him a proposal for an alternative road from East Sikkim's Rorathang to Mainaguri in West Bengal's Jalpaiguri district by constructing a 28-km long tunnel and thus avoiding the Darjeeling Hills, through which NH-31A passes.

The state government has conducted a preliminary survey of this proposed route, official sources said in Gangtok.

With the threat of another indefinite strike from March 19 by the GNLF if the culprits involved in the ambush on their party supremo Subhash Ghising are not arrested by then, Chamling made a fervent appeal for the alternative road to the prime minister and also to the Union home minister, the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission and other central ministers during his meetings with them.

Handing over a letter to Vajpayee detailing the hardships and economic loss the strike from February 11 had caused to the Sikkimese people, Chamling expressed the need for a 'long term' solution to the issue and urged the Centre to ensure that NH-31A is kept open during such agitations.

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