Workers paint railings in Gangtok on Wednesday. Picture by Prabin Khaling

Gangtok, Sept. 28: The reception that is being arranged for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh when he comes here tomorrow has not gone down well with a section of people here.

Usually a visiting VVIP gets to see colourful gates and freshly painted pavement railings. Potholes on the road that the guest is supposed to travel on, too, disappear overnight to ensure a smooth ride.

This time, however, the sight of pavement railings along the 2km Deorali-Gangtok stretch getting a fresh coat of green and the Border Roads Organisation working hard to cover the craters on NH31A have enraged a lot of people.

Some have vented their feelings through a group a social networking site.

“So sad that inspite of all the terror n destruction faced by da people....da gov is still trying to present an image of a happy beautiful place......”, one person wrote on the wall where a picture of two workers painting railings has been uploaded.

A VVIP visiting Gangtok usually lands in the army helipad at Libing and proceeds towards Deorali to take NH31A to reach the state capital.

“hope govt. (whoever is incharge) will not ask students to line up along the road holding tricolor to welcome the PM. Stop impressing at least at this time of moment,” wrote a user.

“how can we ask for 1 lakh crore for damages when PM sees gangtok so shiny and new..wonder who’s bright idea it was..,” posted another member of the group that was created after the recent quake.

To facilitate the repair, Gangtok-bound vehicles have been diverted from Indira bypass to meet NH31A at Hospital Dara. The detour takes 30 minutes extra. Traffic leaving the town has to travel via Nam Nang to meet the national highway at Deorali.

Bhandari on quake

Former chief minister and Pradesh Congress Committee president Nar Bahadur Bhandari has said the magnitude of the damage in Sikkim caused by the earthquake on September 18 has been “contributed” by the Chamling government’s thrust on hydel policy.

“The magnitude of damage has been contributed by the thoughtless, selfish and myopic policy of the present SDF government under the leadership of chief minister Pawan Chamling….Ruthless deforestation in the project areas, extensive use of explosives by the power developers have directly or indirectly contributed to the present disaster..,” Bhandari said in a memorandum faxed to the Prime Minister yesterday.

The remark comes two days after Chamling said the hydel plants in the state could not be blamed for the recent tremors. A faculty member of the geology and geophysics department of IIT Kharagpur had also echoed him. “Hydel projects do not cause earthquakes and the chief minister is correct...,” he had said.

Bhandari has demanded that the Centre should “immediately scrap” all mega power projects “if it wanted Sikkim to exist as a state.

“How could the chief minister declare damage of 1 lakh houses and loss of Rs 1 lakh crore immediately after the disaster struck? He could not have collected information immediately after the calamity particularly when his administration was paralysed for almost 48 hours,” the memorandum reads.