We spent a most delightful holiday at Sikkim late last month! Sikkim is wonderful in April, in terms of its pristine Himalayan landscapes, waterfalls, snow-capped peaks, lakes and rivers, pines, orchids and purple and red Rhododendron valleys, the lush greenery of the Eastern Himalayas and mountain-roads. But what we enjoyed most, were the people and the ambience of clean tourism and the way it’s maintained differently from other tourism hot-spots in our Country.
Sikkim and Goa: I think there’s a host of economic similarities between these two States. Both are international tourism majors and have tourist-friendly people. Area-wise however Sikkim with its rugged mountain terrains of 7,000 sq kms is double of Goa’s 3,700 sq kms. Sikkim has a population of about 6 lakh against Goa’s 15 lakh. Both States happen to be the richest States in the country with a per-capita GSDP of over Rs 5 lakh a year! Both have above 80% literacy, rich culture and heritages and happen to be the only two Indian homes to casinos!
Whilst both States are “Front-Runners” in the Niti Ayog’s SDG Indices, both have highly eco-sensitive terrain, Sikkim additionally, having a sensitive 3-way, Bhutan-China-Nepal International Border, (part of the fabled “Silk Route”), it’s militarily sensitive too.
Sikkim’s main earners: Whilst Sikkim’s earnings are majorly from tourism, it also prospers in stepped agriculture, (it’s world’s second-largest Cardamom producer), orchards, tea-gardens and food-processing. Sikkim has matured brewing, distilling, tanning and watch-making industries as well.
It follows from this that Sikkim has to manage its environmental protection structure efficiently, as key to its existence and sustenance. The people are convinced about this. The only difference I think, with the rest of India!
Sikkim’s tourism is extremely well-structured. The Tourism Department has a well-monitored network of jeeps and hotels operating in distinct Tourism Circuits, like the North Sikkim Circuit, or the West Sikkim Circuit, the Buddhist Circuit, etc.The fares are structured by the department. Internally, in Gangtok, the taxis never fleece travellers; it’s all Rs 150 or 250 for a trip depending upon the time and drop-destination! Secondly, the Tourism Development Corporation sees to it, all “rides” are working, for example, the ropeways at Tsomgo and Tashiling, or the ziplining at Bakthang or the paragliding at Yumthang, the raftings on the Rangeet, everything works! I think Gangtok has the best Centrum (the MG Market) of all the tourist towns I’ve ever been to, best view, it’s walk-only, cleanest, paved spick and span, absolutely no spit-marks!
Environment Management: We were rather impressed by Sikkim’s Environment Management and Green activities. Sikkim was the first Indian State to ban single-use plastics in 1998. Long before the “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.” In 2016, they completely banned single-use plastic water-bottles. Only, in the State Capital Municipal-Limits you still get ONLY 5 litre-bottles of mineral water, (SPCB approved). So, you have five-times less mess-ups on drains. Shops have large dispensers of RO water, which they happily refill peoples’ own containers. But where’s the catch? We tried in Goa – twice, passed notifications banning plastics, but look at our beaches on Monday mornings! The difference is the people-involvement and enforcement that they do. Even the cabbie will see to it that the tourist doesn’t retain his plastic water-bottle beyond North-Sikkim district-borders. No grocer will deliver your orders in plastic bags, no waiter will serve you with plastic plates and spoons; it’s all paper or cardboard. It’s completely self-policed; no roadside nuisances, tourists if caught pay heavy penalties. Sikkim is totally bin-less. Look at the roadside garbage here, or say, at the St Inez creek.
How do they manage: Sikkim produces nearly 60,000 tonnes of municipal waste a year, of which 40,000 tonnes are biodegradable and 20,000 tonnes are non-biodegradable. The policy is to treat the bio-degradable mass in compost plants and to recycle the non-biodegradable mass and prevent piling up in the out-city pits. All this, keeping different legislation-compliance in view.
For this to happen, there are notifications and compliance requirements for waste reductions, waste segregation, collection and transportation to compost plants for degradable waste and to recycling facilities for non-degradable waste.
Sikkim is the only State with 100% organic farming. The policy is to recycle plastics from a more harmful state to a less harmful usage. After the end of the recycled lives, ideally, it’s incinerated, releasing the calorific value for specific value-added use. That’s the whole cycle. But all of this is fine, as long as the system with all its cogs-and-wheels work! We saw, there in Sikkim it does work!
Green Footprints: Plastics are just another face of carbon from fossil fuels. We have tasks for reduction of carbon emissions of one billion tonnes by 2030 nationally, as agreed in the Glasgow COP26.
The next area is energy. Sikkim generates its power thru a network of small 10MW to 25 MW from small hydel-power plants and four major hydel-power stations. There are absolutely no power cuts! I think, Goa needs to do a lot more in renewable energy generation, speed-up on plans for 110 MW decentralized solar power-plants and firm up fast on floating 2.5 MW plan on the Selaulim Dam.
And in conclusion: Sharing of best practices are tools for achievements of excellence, in my view. Let’s compete for excellence!
(Binayak Datta is a Finance professional)
