Sekhar Regmi

Biratnagar, June 24:

Growth in revenue collection at seven chhoti customs office in Morang district have been nil.

The main customs office at Biratnagar said that these offices have not shown any growth. Surendra Nath Aryal, chief of customs office at Biratnagar, said that it is not surprising to see a low revenue collection, but it is quite amazing to see zero percentage growth. The Madhumalla, Tarigama, Rangeli, Dainiya, Chunibari, Doriya and Gaurighat chhoti customs offices have shown zero growth. These customs offices have not collected even a single rupee in revenue during this fiscal year. However, the other two customs office — Kadmaha and Mayagunj have been able to collect some. The Kadmaha chhoti customs office has collected Rs 26,792 and the Mayagunj has collected Rs 8072.

Earlier, millions of rupees were collected as revenue from the chhoti customs office at Morang. The Biratnagar customs office has informed that the situation at Kadmaha and Mayagunj customs office are satisfactory. The chief reason for the nil growth in chhoti customs offices is the employees, the Biratnagar office said. They said that staff from Biratnagar office who were sent to the chhoti customs office do not work at all. Employees from the Biratnagar customs office are sent to chhoti customs office on a rotational basis. These employees go there and just stay for a month and come back as some of the chhoti customs offices do not even have buildings.

Chief export items from chhoti transit points are goods of local use. Since these customs offices do not have any staff, there has been a drastic rise in the export of these goods.

Surendra Aryal, chief of the Biratnagar customs office, denied that the nil growth rate in seven chhoti customs office is due to employees. He said that the employees who are sent to the offices, work, as they are asked to prepare a work distribution sheet after they come back. He said that heightened Maoists activities have driven away the police and army and this has worsened the functioning of these chhoti customs office. He added that chhoti customs office remains just a name. The Biratnagar customs office informed that responsibilities of the chhoti customs office has decreased a lot. Meanwhile, the Biratnagar office has collected revenues worth around Rs 1.12 billion in the current fiscal year.