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West Bengal Tourism to introduce Tourist Pick up and Drop points in Kolkata

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The Department of Tourism, Government of West Bengal, will introduce exclusive Tourist Pick-up and Drop-off Points across the City of Joy. Tour Operators in Kolkata often face difficulties due to the traffic restrictions in and around the city while dropping off or picking up tourists in front of places of tourist interest or hotels.

To address this issue and to facilitate the free movement of tourist vehicles across Kolkata, the Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) recommended introducing pre-specified Pick-up and Drop points in different strategic locations across the city with specific signage where only commercially registered tourist vehicles operated by ATSP should be allowed to pick-up-drop tourists.

Considering the above request, West Bengal Tourism initiated a joint inspection to finalise the proposed ‘Tourist Pickup and Drop Points’ along with the representatives from Kolkata Traffic Police, Kolkata Municipal Corporation, the Department of Transport, and the Chairman of IATO on July 26, 2022, and August 04, 2022, respectively.

Going ahead, it has been proposed that the commercially registered tourist vehicles with a seating capacity of up to 10+1 seats will be allowed for 05 minutes, and vehicles above that will be allowed to stop for 10 minutes at the respective Tourist Pick-up and Drop points for operations. The Tourism Department has already initiated the required action with the competent state government departments, and a notification was issued on November 03, 2022, to implement the proposal at the earliest. The idea was also to facilitate the recognised tour operators and tourist transport operators to ensure seamless movement of tourists across the city of joy and position Kolkata as a tourist-friendly city.

Debjit Dutta, West Bengal Chapter Chairman, IATO, said, “I am super happy to be a part of this initiative and thank Arpan Mitra for this suggestion made during a Chapter meeting in the recent past and Samik Ray for his active support during the inspection process. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Honourable Tourism Secretory Dr. Saumitra Mohan and the entire team of West Bengal Tourism for considering this proposal.”