• Sujal Pradhan, NET Correspondent, Sikkim 

A new separate Directorate will be constituted within the Department of Tourism and Civil Aviation to oversee the daily management of operations and activities related to tourism as per the new Sikkim Registration and Licensing of Tourist Trade Act 2022.

This will be facilitated through e Governance initiatives and online transactions for delivery of services, through Tourism portal, supported by a Digital Operations Task Force. The bill was tabled by Tourism Minister BS Panth today during the tenth assembly (sixth session part II).

The Directorate shall be implementing the policies, programmes and schemes of the Department of Tourism and Civil Aviation in keeping with the delegation of powers; as notified by the State Government.

It will be headed by a Director, who shall be an Officer of the rank of Special Secretary or Additional Secretary to the Government.

The Directorate shall look after its operations and manage the affairs under various divisions with manpower to commensurate with the nature, scope and extent of operations and activities.

Promotion of Sikkim Tourism, formulation of attractive packages, corridors for high end, value added tourism, facilitating the operations for MICE tourism, adventure tour operations, health and wellness centres, rural tourism, home stays, farm based attractions for tourists, trekking, camping, mountaineering and community based cluster approaches for managing and maintaining tourist attractions; issue of Tourism Trade Licenses and Renewal thereof; registration of tourism entities, operators, partners, facilitators; development of Portal, updation and validation of contents on the portal, convergent multi-mode delivery of information to tourists and stakeholders; management of digital operations in the portal for delivering information and services to tourists aided by the back end team and digital operations task force entrusted with the task of overseeing digital operations;  engaging, managing, and enabling online transactions facilitating the operations of various stakeholders are some of the functions of the Directorate.

The bill proposed with the aim to enable the department to offer online services to tourists and tavellers, while engaging the stakeholders comprising Hotels, Restaurants, Tour Operators, partner agencies in the tourism industry, while also ensuring that mechanism are instituted to entre compliance with policies, rules and notifications of the Government.

Its worthy to note that the Sikkim Chief Minister – Prem Singh Tamang (Golay) announced Online permit system for Restricted Area Permit (RAP) and Protected Area Permit (PAP).

After tabling the Bill, there will be provisions for restructuring the department with the formation of a Directorate and through an executive action constitute a Consultative Committee to seek feedback and inputs from stakeholders for improvements to be made in the operations and activities related to tourism.