Rasuwagadi customs office back in business

KATHMANDU: The Customs Office in Rasuwagadhi situated in the northern border point of the country has resumed its services.

The services were halted after the customs office was buried by landslide following the April 25 quake.

All work had stopped after landslide buried the office 

The displaced customs office has come into operation from a rented building in Timure Gaun situated some three kilometers below the previous location where the office stood, according to Phadindraraj Aryal, Assistant Chief at the Customs Office in Rasuwagadi.

The Customs Office in Rasuwagadhi first came into operation from December 1, 2014 and had been seeing transactions with small-scale capital.

Mukunda Poudel, a business person, who bore loss worth Rs 80 million after his 10 containers got buried under the landslide, said that a group of Nepali businessmen had appealed with the concerned authority to resume the Customs Office in Rasuwagadi at the earliest and to provide quake-hit business persons like him loan at subsidised interest rate.

After the Customs Office in Rasuwagadhi came to a halt due to the effect of the quake and the landslide, service at the Immigration Office there also halted, resulting in inconvenience for Nepalis wanting to travel to Kerung, a small trading town in Chinese border point.

Goods worth millions of rupees were left to be cleared on the Chinese side of the border following the quake as the Chinese side prevented the entry of Nepalis in the absence of a functioning Customs Office.