FNNTE urges members to register as ‘company’ within five days

Kathmandu, May 19

The Federation of Nepali National Transport Entrepreneurs (FNNTE) — the umbrella organisation representing transporters — today directed all its members (transport committees) to register themselves under the company modality.

Issuing a statement today, FNNTE has asked its member transport committees to register under the company model within the next five days.

“We have asked our members to register their committees/associations under ‘company’ modality within this week. We will not be responsible for those members who do not register their firms accordingly,” said Saroj Sitaula, general secretary of FNNTE, adding that transport bodies — associations and committees — are registering themselves as companies based on the agreement that FNNTE signed with the Department of Transport Management (DoTM).

As part of ending the syndicate system that was widely prevalent in the public transportation sector and bringing public transportation under the tax net, the government had directed transport bodies to operate only after registering under the company modality more than one year ago. Moreover, the government had then frozen the bank accounts and other assets of those transport bodies that had refused to register as a ‘company’ and had backed the transport syndicate.

Meanwhile, DoTM had asked FNNTE to facilitate in making transport bodies register themselves as company after a majority of transport associations/committees were reluctant to comply with the government direction.

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

Though the government was supposed to scrap all transport bodies  from mid-July last year if they did not switch to the company model by then, the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport could not do so after a majority of transport bodies did not comply with the government’s direction.

The move to make transport bodies register as company 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 has transactions worth billions of rupees annually, under the income tax net of government.