Yangang, a small town in southern Sikkim, took a big step towards turning the place into one of the most sought-after tourist destinations in the state with the inauguration of a 3.5 km long high-altitude ropeway on Tuesday.
The ropeway, which was constructed at a cost of about Rs 210 crore between Dhapper and Bhaleydunga, was inaugurated by Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman virtually from Gangtok. Of the total project cost, Rs 57.82 crore had been gap funded under the Prime Minister’s Development for North East Region (PM-DevINE), which she had announced in the 2022- 23 budget.
The cable car in Namchi district has been constructed at a height of 5,938 feet at the starting point in Dhapper and at 9,918 feet at the endpoint in Bhaleydunga, which is a cliff a short distance from Ravangla, a tourist hotspot. The 7km up and down ride on the ropeway provides a bird’s eye view of the Maenam Wildlife Sanctuary, which is considered to be a treasure trove of medicinal plants.
“The ropeway will have 18 gondolas with a sitting capacity of eight persons each. It will take about 10 minutes to cover the to and fro journey at a maximum speed of six metres per second,” said Sugato Mazumder, the project manager and consultant.
He said cable lines were made of 2mm thick fully galvanised rope and the cabins were fully automatic. “Ropeways operate on two different systems: bi-cable and mono-cable. Dhapper-Bhaleydunga ropeway is mono-cable. It probably is the longest ropeway that operates in this system in India,” he added.
Yangang residents appear to know the ropes and said they wanted to ride piggyback on the ropeway to transform their place into one of the most sought-after tourist destinations not just in Sikkim but in the entire country.
“We feel once this ropeway comes into operation, it will take Yangang to the next level. We feel the tourism potential of Yangang will increase manifold and we can make a living out of it. Some of us youths have set up a mission, Vision 2027, with a dream to develop Yangang as one of the top 10 destinations in the country, and have been working accordingly,” said Hem Kumar Subba, a Yangang resident.
Yangang is the ancestral home of former chief minister Pawan Chamling and it was his government that had started the ropeway as the first part of the two-phase tourist-centric infrastructure projects with the other being a skywalk, the work on which was stalled because of funds constraints.
