Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Sikkim CM Pawan Chamling keen to present Sikkim with skywalk



Grand Canyon Skywalk

Chamling keen to present Sikkim with skywalk

GANGTOK, 4 AUG: The Sikkim chief minister Mr Pawan Chamling today said that his government was keen to present the state with a skywalk at Bhaleydhunga. The project is expected to propel Sikkim into the international tourism map besides becoming a landmark of its own in the Himalayan state. An international consultancy firm has in its pre-feasibility report pegged the estimated cost for the proposed skywalk at Rs 1200 crore approximately.
The lump sum cost involves construction of three finger-shaped glass skywalks connected through a tunnel in the rocky spur of Bhaleydunga cliff at an elevation of 10,102 feet.
Mr Chamling has been interested in the realization of the tourism project atop a mountain cliff on the lines of the Grand Canyon Skywalk. In this regard, the state government had engaged the services of Grant Thornton, an international consultancy firm to draft a feasibility study on the project.
The company’s representatives in India today presented the pre-feasibility on the Bhaleydunga Skywalk project at Chintan Bhavan in Gangtok in presence of the chief minister and other ministers.
According to the firm representatives, the skywalk would cost around Rs 500 crore while the rest amount would be spent on allied supporting infrastructures like cable car, tourist complex, accommodation centre, nature and spiritual complex and other tourism amenities. The firm has already submitted the interim and draft report of the project to the state government.
The proposed glassy skywalk at Bhaleydunga would be a three-fingered fork at an elevation of 10,102 feet and a ropeway from the nearby hamlet of Yangang would connect to it