West Bengal: Darjeeling municipality puts proposed tourist tax on hold after backlash

The Darjeeling Municipality on Monday notified the proposed tourist tax of Rs 20 per head for which a tender was also awarded to a local firm triggering a severe backlash from the people.

Darjeeling:Following backlash from stakeholders, the Darjeeling Municipality in West Bengal has retracted from its decision to impose a tourist tax of Rs 20 per head for visiting the municipality area, sources said. The Darjeeling Municipality, on Monday, issued guidelines to the hotel owners in the Queen of Mountains and informed that tourist tax will be collected from the tourists coming to the hill from November 27.

The municipality issued guidelines for collecting the tax at 20 rupees per head. Tenders were called by Darjeeling Municipality for the collection of taxes. A Darjeeling based firm had bagged the tender for a whopping Rs 28 lakh to collect the tourist tax for the next year. However the decision was met with fierce criticism from various quarters including the taxi drivers and locals with the stakeholders urging the Darjeeling civic body to reconsider the decision.

Hamro Party president and GTA president Ajay Edward said that the Darjeeling municipality's proposal of collection of such taxes “is very unethical and unconstitutional”. “There is no rule for the collection of this tax in the (West Bengal) Municipal Act. They are trying to collect this tax by abusing their power," Edward said.

Following the backlash, Darjeeling Municipality Chairman Deepen Thakuri said, "We have not taken any final decision on collecting the tourist tax. We are yet to discuss the matter." Swagta Bhattacharya, a tourist from Kolkata who came to Darjeeling, said, "There is no point in imposing this new tax. If someone is travelling with his family, he/she will have to pay a lot of extra money.

The municipality should reconsider this decision." According to political circles, the tourism industry is now somewhat normal after the Covid-19 scare thereby making a new tax like this uncalled for. In such a situation, the decision to impose the tax may have an adverse effect on the hill tourism industry, the tourism community feels.

Besides, the Darjeeling Municipality found itself in the eye of the storm after political parties put pressure on it to backtrack. The Darjeeling Municipality was forced to withdraw the decision to levy tourist tax for the time being.