MARCH 12

It is embarrassing to see 19 electric vehicles provided by the donors on subsidy being stranded in Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha, for the last two years for want of a legal and operational procedure.

These vehicles were meant to operate in and around the Lumbini area to reduce pollution at the UNESCO World Heritage Site. The vehicles were bought at a cost of Rs 130 million under the Asian Development Bank's Clean Energy Project in November 2020. The government had spent more than Rs 30 million in taxes for importing the electric vehicles, which were run for sometime but suspended for lack of legal procedures. The vehicles were aimed at connecting Gautam Buddha International Airport (GBIA) with the religious sites, such as Lumbini, Tilaurakot, Ramgram, Devdaha and surrounding areas to make tourists' movement easier. The luxurious vehicles include five 19-seater buses and 14 five-seater vans, which have automatic doors and are disabled-friendly.

The government has also built a charging station in Lumbini at a cost of Rs 139 million. The charging station has also remained useless as the vehicles remain grounded.

The private sector has criticised the Lumbini Development Trust (LDT) for dilly-dallying in operating the e-vehicles. It is the duty of the LDT to initiate the modality of operating the vehicles, whose main objective is to reduce pollution in and around the Lumbini area and provide a comfortable journey to foreign tourists visiting the Greater Lumbini Area, which covers around 45 kilometres from Tilaurakot in the west to Ramgram in the east. The private sector, which had pinned high hopes on the tourism business in Lumbini after the operation of the GBIA on May 16 last year, is worried that the investment made in the hospitality sector to the tune of over Rs 40 billion would go to waste should the government agencies remain inactive to operate the airport and vehicles in a full-fledged manner. It is strange why the LDT has made inordinate delay in developing an operation modality and change the number plate of the electric vehicles.

In 2022, the LDT had operated the vehicles marking Dashain, Tihar and Chhath festivals along various routes covering the GBIA. If the LDT cannot develop the standard modality of operating the vehicles, the central government or the Department of Transport Management (DoTM) should help it sort out the legal issues. It should not have taken such a long time to complete the legal formality to convert the government vehicles onto tourist ones (bearing green colour number plates). If the government cannot operate these vehicles in the Greater Lumbini Area, they can be handed over to the private operators under certain terms and conditions so that they can provide pollution-free service to the tourists visiting the Lumbini area, which attracts thousands of people every day. The DoTM should have earlier developed a legal mechanism before the purchase of the e-vehicles. If the statement of the LDT is to be believed, the Ministry of Transport and Physical Infrastructure is to blame for the inordinate delay in bringing the e-vehicles into operation. If the LDT is not the competent authority to develop the legal procedure for the operation of the e-vehicles, the concerned ministry must step in to overcome the legal hurdles.

A version of this article appears in the print on March 13, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.