Despite assurances that Indian tourists entering Nepal are no longer required to carry passports or voter ID cards, the message doesn't seem to have reached Calcutta.

And this severely affected the flow of Indian tourists to Nepal during the Puja holidays last week, according to travel agents in Calcutta. Bengali families with children were finding it difficult to arrange the documents, and this adversely affected their travel plans, according to Dilip Sengupta of Kundu Travels. Together with fears of political instability, Nepal-bound holiday traffic was down 70 percent from last year. Royal Nepali Consul-general in Calcutta, Ghanashyam Lamsal, told The Times of India that the document requirements had been imposed "with mutual consent" between India and Nepal.