Sikkim chief minister P.S. Tamang (Golay) declared on Sunday that two new districts — Soreng and Pakyong — would be created by carving out the existing West and East districts, respectively, by next year.

Speaking at the foundation stone-laying of a community health centre (CHC) at Soreng, Golay said the upgrade of Soreng and Pakyong subdivisions to districts could have happened this year itself, but couldn’t because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We will upgrade Pakyong subdivision and Soreng subdivion to districts by 2022,” he said.

Sikkim now has four districts.

The chief minister, who was born in Soreng and had represented the Chakung Assembly constituency from the area for three terms, said he was in favour of upgrading the subdivision not because it is his birthplace, but because both in terms of its geographical area and population, the place deserved to be a district. “Even before the formation of our government, we had declared it in our election manifesto,” he said.

The Sikkim Krantikari Morcha, of which Golay is the president, had promised to upgrade Soreng and Pakyong to districts in its manifesto for the 2019 Assembly elections.

A year before the election, Pawan Chamling, then the chief minister and president of the Sikkim Democratic Front, had also promised to consider the demand for upgrading the two places, but had failed to deliver.

The creation of the districts is a poll promise of the SKM.

“The SKM had made a host of political promises, including providing Assembly quota for Limbu and Tamang communities, tribal status to be left out Nepali communities and regularisation of jobs of temporary employees, among others, but has nothing to show as yet. If it creates the two districts, Golay and his party can justifiably take credit,” said one of analysts.

Soreng is the largest among the four subdivisions of West Sikkim consisting of 34 gram panchayat units and 52 revenue blocks. It has four primary health centres, four police stations and five block administrative centres. In terms of geographical area, Pakyong, too, is the largest in East Sikkim.

However, it has fewer administrative units than Soreng.

The demand for upgrading Pakyong was raised afresh earlier in the programme by P.K. Pradhan, the former chief secretary of Sikkim, who had donated almost six acres of his ancestral land for the construction of the community health centre.

Pradhan also offered the use of his house in Soreng to set up offices till physical infrastructure for the new district was set up.

Rescued from snow

Picture courtesy: Indian Army

The Indian Army evacuated five persons, including drivers of three trucks, after their vehicles had been stuck on a snow-covered road between Samdong and Lachen in the North district of Sikkim on Friday.

Two feet of ice had accumulated on the road because of heavy snowfall from Friday afternoon. The army carried out the rescue operation (in picture) from 9pm to 11pm.

The trucks were returning from Samdong to Siliguri. The rescued people were taken to a nearby army post where they were provided with medicines, food and warm clothes for the night.