National Highway 10, crucial for connecting landlocked Sikkim, is poised to strain relations between the state and Bengal.
A Sikkim minister has called for a march to Bengal to demand better maintenance of the highway. Sikkim PWD minister N.B. Dahal on Wednesday set a 100-day deadline for proper restoration of the highway.
“NH-10 should be handed over (to central agencies) if they (Bengal government) cannot maintain it. The road was fine when the BRO (Border Road Organisations) was maintaining….We will wait for another 100 days after which youths (from Sikkim) will march towards the Bengal PWD offices (to lodge our protest),” said Dahal.
The highway connecting Siliguri (near Phasidewa More) to Rangpo on the Bengal-Sikkim border is 78.58km. A 52km stretch of the highway, which runs along the Teesta, used to be earlier maintained by the army’s BRO but the same was handed over to the Bengal PWD on June 7, 2016. The road is also a lifeline to Kalimpong.
Sikkim chief minister Prem Singh Tamang, Darjeeling MP Raju Bista and Sikkim MP Indra Hang Subba have been demanding the highway be handed over to the National Highways Authority of India or National Highway and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited. Golay had said: “…It (highway closure) is talking a toll on the state’s economy and we are losing ₹100 crore everyday as SGST (the state’s share of goods and services tax)."
