Thimpu: Bhutan's lower house has passed a legislation that makes it mandatory for visitors from India, Bangladesh, and the Maldives to pay a fee of Rs 1200 per day for its "sustainable development" from July this year.

The Druk kingdom, which is concerned about its ecology and environment, decided to impose the fee following a sharp increase in regional tourists. There was a ten per cent hike in the number of tourists from the three countries who visited Bhutan in 2018.

Last month  Bhutan's finance ministry, in a bid to modernise its tax structure, has submitted major reforms that include the introduction of GST and imposition of sustainable development fee on regional tourists. It, however, did not define "regional tourists" then, but said the Himalayan kingdom of just 800,000, often dubbed the "happiest place on earth", would work towards maintaining its "low volume, high value" tourism to enable it to continue with its sustainable development model. 

Bhutanese authorities have assured the Indian government that "tourists from India would not be inconvenienced in the course of the implementation of the new regulation".