Proud to be a Sikkimese: Sikkim Travel, Culture & Local Heritage

SNT, as Sikkim Nationalised Transport, is popularly known as the backbone of Sikkim's rich, old heritage and transportation history. When I came across the article “A review of Nationalised Road Transport in Sikkim (1944-1969)” written by L.H Hartnett, the then General Manager of Sikkim Nationalised Transport, published in the Silver Jubilee magazine of SNT in 1969, I found some excellent preview of the early days of the Sikkim state transport system that was to change the scenario of Sikkim transportation within the next fifty years. It would take a while to complete the review of the Sikkim Nationalised Transport over the last six decades, but I would be more precise in bringing to mind the early days that completed the establishment of today’s SNT. People boarding the Sikkim Transport Service Bus at Deorali (the late 50s) The year was 1944; when the rest of the world was engaged in the disastrous Second World War, a department called the Truck Department run by the Governmen...

BY SHITAL PRADHAN Part 1 SNT as Sikkim Nationalised Transport is popularly known has been a backbone of a rich old heritage in Sikkim transportation history. Set up in 1944 and more than 50 years later it is still going stronger, marching ahead with pride. It is believed anything to begin takes immense hardship and patience, in this article we would be carrying out the story of the first twenty-five years of Sikkim Nationalised Transport, a pride of Sikkim . The year was 1944; when the rest of the world was engaged in the disastrous Second World War, a department called Truck Department run by Government of Sikkim was the forefront of transportation in the hills of Sikkim . Sikkim then had….snowfall in the Northern Ranges in winter…rainfall exceeding 100 inches a year during monsoons… frequent landslides…subsidence… weak bridges…absence of airport. For a hilly region like that of Sikkim where major development in the field of transportation was merely a dream; Tr...