Kathmandu, December 14

Transport entrepreneurs have finally ‘formally’ decided to register their business under the company model.

The meeting of the Federation of Nepalese National Transport Entrepreneurs (FNNTE) today decided to abide with the government’s direction to transform their businesses to the company modality. However, entrepreneurs have set a few preconditions for going with the government’s direction that includes transferring transport bodies’ movable and immovable properties, including their vehicles and staffs to the new company. Similarly, they have also asked the government to review the provision that restricts a transport firm from having more than 99 shareholders.

“All transport bodies (transport committees and associations) will register themselves under the ‘private limited’ format. However, the government should facilitate transport entrepreneurs in the aforementioned concerns,” informed Saroj Sitaula, general secretary of FNNTE.

The decision of the transport entrepreneurs to register their businesses and vehicles under the company modality is backed by the government’s decision to disallow public vehicles that have not been registered with the Department of Transport Management (DoTM) under the company model to ply the roads from December 16. The DoTM had recently issued a notice informing transport bodies that their vehicles would be banned from being operated from the given date if they failed to change into the company model.

As per the department, there are more than 200,000 public vehicles, including passenger and goods-carrying vehicles across the country. However, only 6,000 such vehicles (of the 1,500 transport bodies) have registered with the DoTM under the company model so far.

As a major step to end syndicate practices in the transportation sector, the government had earlier scrapped all transport bodies and directed them to operate under the company modality by registering themselves at the Office of the Company Registrar within mid-December. The move was intended not only to end the monopoly of transporters in the public transportation sector and ensure the sector’s healthy growth, but also to bring Nepal’s public transport sector, which makes transactions worth billions of rupees annually, under the income tax net of the government.