Gangtok, March 10: The Sikkim Assembly today adopted a resolution demanding smooth traffic on the national highway that links the hill state to the rest of the country and sought damages for shutdowns in Bengal.

Tabling the bill, urban development minister D.D. Bhutia said the state had lost “hundreds of crores” since the Gorkhaland agitation began in 1985. “This loss to the state deserves to be compensated.”

The resolution comes in the wake of a spate of strikes and blockades in the hills and Siliguri, from whose outskirts begins the highway to Sikkim. The hill state’s nearest station and airport are in Siliguri.

The resolution said when rain snapped the road link, Delhi was prompt to react but Bengal was not when bandhs cut it off. It asked the Centre and the Bengal government evolve a permanent solution to the problem at the earliest.

Tourists, who bring a large chunk of Sikkim’s revenue, students and patients were stranded when Subash Ghisingh’s rivals called an “indefinite bandh” last month.

Bengal chief secretary A.K. Deb declined comment on the compensation, but an official said a resolution “can’t be binding on a government”.