The Centre has started the process to build a new road bridge over the Teesta river that would connect the Sevoke Bazaar area with the Dooars, a longstanding demand of residents, with necessary approval from the railways to construct the approach road to it on railway land.
On Saturday, Darjeeling MP Raju Bista said this March, he raised the issue in Parliament. “Recently, I received a letter from the Union minister of state for road transport & highways (Gen V.K. Singh) saying preparation of the detailed project report of the proposed bridge is in progress. Also, the ministry sought and obtained the right of way (RoW) from the railway ministry for construction of the approach road of the bridge, along with certain modifications,” said Bista.
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In north Bengal, the most important stretch in terms of national security is the “Siliguri Corridor” or a stretch that starts from the Islampur subdivision of North Dinajpur and ends in Siliguri of Darjeeling district.
The width of the Indian sub-continent is slimmest in this stretch, with Bangladesh and Nepal on either side.
In the past few months, the Trinamul government in the state and the BJP government at the Centre came up with a number of new announcements and launched new infrastructure services.
The Telegraph lists some of the important initiatives made by both the sides.
Following are some of the initiatives of the Mamata Banerjee government:
The Bengal tourism department has drawn up a plan to showcase Siliguri the gateway to Northeast as a single destination rather than a transit point as a number of attractions have up in and around the city in the past few years.
“Till now, Siliguri has been a transit point for tourists travelling to the Darjeeling hills, Dooars, and the neighbouring countries of Nepal and Bhutan. However, during the past few years, a number of new attractions were developed in and around the city. We feel tourists can enjoy spending a couple of days in the city,” said state tourism minister Gautam Deb.