The Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) has received proposals of ₹400 crore from “different government agencies” to develop the tourism properties that the hill body is planning to lease out to private players.

There has been widespread criticism of the terms and conditions of the GTA’s lease agreement after the matter came to the fore following a report in The Telegraph on July 1.

Citing the report, Gorkha Gaurav Sansthan, a social organisation, has demanded that the 26 properties — tourist lodges and cafes — be preferably leased out to local people because of unemployment in the hills. Of the 26 properties, nine lodges were already leased out to private players.

Gorkha Janmukti Morcha president Bimal Gurung on Monday wrote to chief minister Mamata Banerjee seeking her intervention to stop the “illegal handing over of public properties”.

GTA chief executive Anit Thapa told The Telegraph on Monday that the hill body was receiving proposals from “government agencies” and was reassessing the decision to lease out the tourist lodges and cafes. Thapa did not provide the details of the “government agencies”.

“We are receiving proposals from various government agencies which are willing to invest up to ₹400 crore in our properties. The proposals are to develop the properties on a model in which revenue will be shared among the GTA, the government agency and any expert group involved in tourism,” said Thapa.

Thapa, however, added: “Everything will be online.”

The GTA chief was trying to stress that the process would be transparent.

“Nevertheless, leasing out government properties is a practice that many governments are adopting,” said Thapa.

On Monday, Gurung wrote to Mamata stating that the terms and conditions that the GTA was working on for leasing out the tourism properties were “illegal”.

Gurung has sought the chief minister’s intervention “to cancel all these illegal handing over of public properties by individuals running GTA".

The letter that cited The Telegraph report stated that nine tourism lodges had been leased out for ₹38.5 lakh “which amounts to around Rs 4.25 lakhs per bungalow per year”.

Gurung has said the Sandakphu trekking trail — along which the nine cottages are located — is popular, indicating that the lease amount is low.

Questions were also raised regarding the lease period of 30 years. “Properties are usually run on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) model for 15 years. Lease periods usually range between three and five years,” said a hotelier.

Norden Sherpa, the GTA Sabha member in charge of tourism, had earlier told this newspaper that the hill body's engineers estimated a cost of ₹6.8 crore to repair the nine cottages. “These cottages were earning only about ₹6-7 lakh per annum,” said Sherpa to justify the GTA’s decision.

Some of the properties are well-known and located in prime locations. They are Swiss Cottage at Mirik, Delo Tourist Lodge at Kalimpong and Silver Fir at Chowrasta in Darjeeling.