City roads need upgrade to handle high tourist footfall

SHILLONG, July 22: The tourist footfall in Meghalaya is increasing day by day and is expected to touch 15 lakh by 2024 thereby providing a thrust to the state’s tourism, but the traffic situation in the state capital and other parts of Meghalaya may change the course of such a future.
As tourism is one of the most thriving sectors in Meghalaya, the state is in need of bigger and wider roads to handle increasing number of tourists coming in daily as unregulated tourism paves way for numerous challenges.
Hoteliers in the city have revealed that their hotels are packed on weekends during the summer.
This may be due to the summer vacation time in Assam, which enables a huge number of tourists from the neighbouring state to travel to Meghalaya in order to beat the heat. The roads, thereafter, witness traffic congestion. “The numbers go down slightly during week days but weekends are packed,” one of the hoteliers from Shillong said. While some of the happening spots such as Shillong city, Laitlum, Cherrapunjee and Dawki welcome tourists with open arms, sadly, the density of roads in Shillong and other parts of the state have remained the same over the years. Many hotels, guest houses and homestays have opened up in different places in the state, but there is clarion call for improved infrastructure, particularly bigger roads to accommodate the additional vehicles that arrive in the state every day.