This time the digital desk, Darjeeling: The tourism industry, one of the backbone of North Bengal’s economy, has been hit hard by the second corona. Almost all bookings are canceled. This will affect the lives of about two million people involved in the industry. The application of tax exemption to the government belongs to the organization of tourism businessmen.

North Bengal’s tourism traders have not yet been able to cope with the first push of the corona. The second wave of Corona hit the whole country again. As a result, the traders involved in the tourism industry, which is one of the backbone of the economy of North Bengal, are practically rich. This is because most bookings have been canceled due to lockdowns since the Corona virus surfaced last year. But as the situation became normal, this industry of North Bengal was slowly returning to its rhythm. However, 90% of the bookings in North Bengal were canceled due to the second push. Last year’s loss has not yet been recovered by the traders. Again, the cancellation of this booking has resulted in the loss of about 2 million people in North Bengal who are practically involved in the tourism business. Samrat Sanyal, editor of the Himalayan Hospitality and Tourism Development Network, an association of tourism businessmen, said the tourism industry in North Bengal suffered a lot last year due to the Corona. But this year, almost all bookings in North Bengal have been canceled due to the resurgence of Karna infection. In this situation, the tourism industry, one of the industries in North Bengal, is in dire straits today, so we appeal to the government to at least look at the tourism traders. At the same time, he said that even in this situation, the government has to waive the taxes that the traders have to pay.

On the other hand, Raj Basu, convener of the Association for the Conservation and Tourism, an association of tourism businessmen involved in the rural tourism industry, said there are about 12,000 rooms under the home host in North Bengal. About 60 to 70 percent of homestay owners who took loans from various banks tried to repair their homestays a little better. But in this situation, they have to worry about repaying the loan. Because the number of tourists coming to North Bengal had already decreased since the election. All homestay bookings in North Bengal have been canceled at the moment due to increased corona infection.

On the other hand, Vijay Khanna, secretary of the Hotel Owners Association of Darjeeling, said that hoteliers have not been able to recover from last year’s lockdown. At the moment, there are no tourist hills in this power of Corona again. As a result, bookings for about 300 hotels in Darjeeling have been canceled. As a result, the losses increased a lot. Because a lot of hotel owners do business with hotels in Darjeeling League. Therefore, the hotel owners are not able to pay the hotel staff and run other hotel expenses as there are no tourists in the hotel at the moment. That is why they are closing the hotel. On the other hand, he said that these three hundred hotels in Darjeeling employ more than three thousand people from different parts of the hills but they are also unemployed at the moment as the hotels are closed now. As a result, unemployment is increasing in the hills.