November 9: Speaker of the House of Representatives Agni Prasad Sapkota inspected the Tatopani Customs Point located in the northern border of Nepal on Monday. After the inspection, he shared that the government should invest in the customs point.

“The checkpoint has been generating billions of rupees as revenue annually and the government should not hesitate to strengthen it,” said Sapkota adding, “Landslides, earthquakes and repeated natural disasters have greatly damaged the customs point. It has been observed that the government of Nepal has to invest in order to make the checkpoint fully operational.”

Stating that the development from Barhabise to Kodari should be taken as a multi-year plan, he emphasized on the need to move ahead by making a short-term and long-term blueprint for it. “In the long run, the road from Dhulikhel to Kodari can be made of two lanes,” said Sapkota adding, “For the short-term, the damaged structures should be repaired immediately.” Sapkota even requested the finance minister, Janardan Sharma to allocate a budget to proceed with the works.

A team including the Speaker Sapkota and the Minister Sharma had inspected Friendship Bridge and the Liping Market. Liping Market is directly connected to the bridge that acts as a border between Nepal and China. The situation here is pitiful after the earthquake. The market alone had a turnover of tens of millions before the earthquake. Large hotels, banks and other commercial shops were running in the market. Sapkota stressed on the need to resume those activities.

Finance Minister Janardan Sharma, who accompanied the speaker to inspect the customs point said that a diplomatic initiative was being taken to strengthen the Tatopani customs point to facilitate the business. “The dry port has improved significantly, and an agreement has been reached with the Chinese government to expand the port,” said Sharma claiming that the customs point would be fully operational on a regular basis within a few months.

“We have already given detailed information to the Chinese government for the construction of physical infrastructure, upgrading  the Barhabise-Kodari road and preventing soil erosion,”  said Sharma, adding, “The Chinese government seems to support the idea of making the customs point fully operational”.

Speaker Sapkota and Minister Sharma jointly inspected the current status from the Tatopani Customs Point to the Friendship Bridge. They inspected the status of Araniko Highway as well. The motive of the investigation was to note the required maintenance and new constructions to be made along the 26 km from Barhabise to Nepal-China border as well.

Speaker’s press advisor, Shridhar Neupane said that discussions have been made with the local entrepreneurs, Tatopani Customs Point and others to effectively operate the Tatopani Customs Point which has been extremely unstable after the earthquake. “Discussions were mainly focused on further coordination with China to improve the checkpoint and Araniko Highway,” Neupane said.

Imports and exports from Tatopani have not been able to normalize also due to the Covid-19 pandemic.