Guwahati, March 8: Bhutan is willing to lift the travel restrictions imposed on students and patients of his country after Operation All Clear in 2003 to restore good relations with Assam.

“We have to take risks now and withdraw the advisory,” the Consul General of Bhutan at the Royal Bhutan Consulate in Calcutta, Dasho Tsering Wangda, told reporters here today.

The movement of students and patients from Bhutan to Assam had reduced to a trickle after Operation All Clear was launched in the neighbouring country in 2003 in the apprehension that citizens of the Himalayan kingdom could be targeted in revenge strikes. The operation was launched to drive away militants of Ulfa and the National Democratic Front of Bodoland holed up in Bhutan.

Many patients used to come to Assam from Bhutan for treatment in hospitals and students used to come for higher studies before 2003. “My agenda is to revive the flow of students and patients to Assam,” Wangda said.

Wangda is on a 10-day visit to Assam and will call upon chief minister Tarun Gogoi and Governor J.B. Patnaik, among others. He has already met industrialists and tour operators for a ground assessment of the situation and visited Sankardev Nethralaya.

“The reason behind staying a longer period of time is to understand the situation on the ground so that relations can be improved substantially,” he said.

Wangda said he would request his government to consider starting Druk Air flights from Paro airport to the city. “The tour operators here have given me a positive feedback of the feasibility of starting flights from Bhutan to Guwahati,” he said.

Wangda said they were planning to form the Guwahati chapter of the Indo-Bhutan Friendship Association, a forum to solve the problems between Assam and Bhutan. “This can later become the Assam Bhutan Chamber of Commerce,” he added. Plans are also afoot to have a Bhutan consulate here.

He ruled out reports that floods in Barpeta and Kokrajhar of Assam were caused by Bhutan. “This happens whenever there are heavy rains in Bhutan as there is a huge flow of water in these districts of Assam but there is no danger like what has been said.”

Wangda said Bhutan had started trade with Bangladesh via Dawki in Meghalaya. It exports apples, oranges and boulders and imports crockery and garments.